Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude
by Arkaidy
Summary: A strange woman appears on a Hive Ship and helps McKay and Sheppard escape certain lunch-ness. In return, she asks for them to send her back home to her own reality - a place where everything they know is fiction. Can they trust her? Part 3 in a series.
1. Chapter 1

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part One  
****cat_latin** , **ruinsofmysanity** and **Vega**

**Rating: **NC-17  
**Spoilers:** Set in late season 2 of SGA  
**Summary: **Marie Susan, grad student and self aware Mary Sue, found herself drawn accidentally into the worlds of fiction. Armed with the powers of a vampire, and the skills of a wizard, Marie must use all her knowledge of pop culture to find her way home again. But what exactly does the trauma of being a Mary Sue do to someone who is real, someone who reacts as a non-fiction being would? The answer is... a lot. And little of it good.

But now that Marie has accepted the fact that she will never be 'normal' again, she is searching for the one person who could possibly understand what it means to be out of time, out of reality, and out of your mind... her son.

**Warnings: **Discussions of past sexual and emotional abuse; bloodplay, and mild kink.

**Previous Parts and essays available on my blog.**

_"StarGate", "Stargate: SG-1", "StarGate: Atlantis" and all associated characters and concepts are property of MGM Studios. This fiction is for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being derived from this work. "The Little Prince" and all associated characters and concepts are property of Austin Saint-Exupery._

_"Slipstream", Marie, and all related concepts are copyright of Vega © 2006_

* * *

"_Come and play with me," the little prince proposed. "I am feeling sad."_

"_I can't play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."_

* * *

Doctor Rodney McKay, PhD., PhD settled deeper into the brush he was hidden in, and cursed.

He cursed the Pegasus Galaxy, for being unpredictable and weird.

He cursed all pre-industrial societies, both past and present, including, but not limited to, the Tunarians, who were currently pursuing them across this godforsaken, totally-lacking-in-Ancient-technology landscape, but most of all, he cursed the owner of the dark, spiky hair he could just make out over the top of the neighboring bush.

Lt. Colonel John Sheppard peeked his head around the bush and squinted at the sky. Once again, Sheppard had smiled the wrong way at the chieftain's daughter, and now they were all running for their lives. Rodney wanted to throw something at him.

Only one thing could make this worse, and the universe, as if hearing Rodney's thoughts, supplied him with it.

Rodney heard the whine of Wraith darts approaching.

Rodney tapped his radio, forgetting of course that his radio had been taken away by the Neanderthals chasing them, and so accidentally jammed his finger into his ear. "Ouch," he hissed under his breath. Craning his head in the opposite direction, he adjusted his sweaty grip on his Beretta and whispered across the clearing to another bush: "Do you hear that?"

The bush replied, in Teyla's voice, "_Yes_, Rodney."

Another bush gave forth Ronon's familiar grunt, and the whir of his blaster powering up to kill.

Rodney cursed one more time for good measure, and hissed, "Sheppard!"

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" Sheppard said, but it must have been hard for him, through all that hair gel, and with Wraith Darts starting to speckle the sky overhead like carrion crows on the horizon, and a whole tribe of angry natives rapidly gaining on their six.

That's when the flash of colorless light happened.

Rodney resisted the urge to scrub at his eyes with the heels of his hands, because, hey, filled with gun, and instead blinked a few times. When the blinking was over and the light had faded a little, it was quickly followed by the delayed crack of a tiny sonic boom.

A little one.

Just enough to confuse him for a moment. Long enough to allow the Tunarians to get closer. And the Darts.

Rodney stifled a moan. His other three companions in the brush were, of course, silent.

"Huh," he heard another voice say.

_How did a Tunarian get in front of us? _Rodney thought, quickly bringing his shaky hand with the gun in it up to aim between her eyes.

Only she didn't look like a native. She wasn't wearing fur. Her hands were in her pockets, and the Tunarians thought pockets were bucket seats for evil spirits, or something. This girl was wearing leather pants and a leather vest. She sported a hip and thigh holster with a rakish sexiness that would have made Sheppard jealous if they weren't hiding for their lives. She wore a knife and a long, slim cylinder of wood in the holster where a gun should be.

She also wore a look of complete and utter confusion.

And then, of course, the blue beam of light from the Dart that he hadn't quite forgotten about scooped her up. It swept to the side. Teyla dove out of the way, Ronan on her heels. Sheppard rolled, scrambled to his feet, and then was gone in another blue beam.

Rodney found he had one more curse left in him.

Then it got him, too.

* * *

Rodney woke when they dumped him on the floor.

Ouch.

Why never a nice divan?

A grunt to his left told him Sheppard had also been similarly dumped. A few screams down the hall told of their former pursuers, the Tunarians, being cocooned after having been just culled. Horrifying. There was no sign of Teyla and Ronon. Rodney could only hope that they escaped the culling beams.

And the strange girl in leather, where was she?

"From which world do you come?" hissed a sibilant, oily, darkly-female voice, and Sheppard was going to be pissed if another Wraith Queen forced him to his knees.

Only this particular Wraith Queen (white hair, this time; good thing, too, it was getting hard to tell them apart,) was not, in fact, speaking to Sheppard. Nor to Rodney, who was trying to eavesdrop as unobtrusively as possible.

The girl from the flash of light was standing completely and eerily still in front of the Queen, her reddish hair darkened to a strange bloody color in the bizarre fluorescents of the Hive Ship. Rodney was just far enough behind the girl – young woman, he amended, looking at the round of her hip in the leather (_wow_), that the Queen did not see him awaken, nor see him reach slowly for the Beretta in his hip holster...which the Wraith drones had taken away.

Damn.

He could, however, also see a sliver of the young woman's face, the length of her scarred neck. There was a sort of strange, bemused smile where the look of sheer terror ought to be. What, had she never seen a Wraith before?

"Answer me!" the Queen demanded.

The young woman arched an eyebrow and cocked her head ever so slightly to the side.

"Very well!" the Queen hissed, and thrust her palm against the woman's chest.

"No!" Rodney screamed, snapping upright at the waist like a hinge. Beside him, Sheppard echoed his motion.

The young woman watched the hand descend and did not jump back. Instead, she turned her eyes briefly to Rodney – a bright blue that was almost violet, he noted – then down at the hand. The fingers against her chest twitched once. She lifted her head to follow the line of the Queen's arm up to her face.

The Queen made a queer, almost nauseated face, and drew back quickly, clutching her wrist.

The young woman lifted a dainty finger, disgust clear on her face, and pulled away the flap of ripped fabric that had once been her button-down blouse. It gave Rodney a spectacular view of her cleavage and of the gaping, white wound in her chest that _was not bleeding._

Well, now. That was new.

The Queen fell back a few steps, spitting and hissing between her shark-like teeth. "What are you?!" she shrieked, and Rodney suddenly liked this Showed-Up-In-A-Flash-Woman very much.

The Flash Woman lowered her eyes and frowned at the wound. And then she smiled.

It was not a pleasant smile.

It was the kind of smile that made goose bumps jump out on flesh. It was the kind of smile that _looked_ like fingernails on a blackboard _sounded_. It was the kind of smile that made you want to hide under the bed for the next million years or so and pray to whomever would listen that the chainsaw-wielding, multiple murderer would find you first.

It was the kind of smile that the Wraith had.

It was the kind of smile that Rodney was very much glad was not aimed at him.

Beside Rodney, Sheppard said, "Huh."

The next movement was too fast to see, but it ended with the Flash Woman holding her arm straight out, as if she had socked someone, and the Wraith Queen curled up on the far side of the hall, holding a bloodied nose.

Oh, Rodney _really _liked this girl.

The Wraith Queen screamed in outrage, and the guards ringing the room surged in on the strange woman in leather, who could apparently survive being fed on. For a moment, she was lost under a sea of white hair and blue arms. The guards were still beating on each other when she shot out from between the splayed legs of one.

Sheppard sprang to his feet. "Find us a way off the ship!" he snarled at Rodney. Rodney darted towards a control panel on the wall, while Sheppard waded into the brawl in the center of the room.

Rodney feverishly tore apart and rewired the control panel to give him access to the central computer system. He'd need--

"Heads up!" Sheppard shouted, and the severed hand of a felled Wraith struck the floor wetly at his feet. Rodney swallowed down his nausea and picked it up. After the third time Rodney had gotten his team off a fully-operational Hive ship, the Wraith had gotten smarter, connecting their already organic technology to their own genetics, similar to the Ancients. So for a few of the more delicate adjustments, Rodney needed a hand. Literally. Rodney could both panic and multitask in the midst of battle, so he tried to observe the fight with one eye as he worked.

At first it seemed as if the woman was going to get creamed, but every time a Wraith tried to feed on her, she either broke its hand, shoved it away, or it ran off screaming. Sheppard picked up a discarded stunner and started blasting from the sidelines.

The Flash Woman barely spared him a grateful glance as the Wraith fell around her. She had no time. One was coming up just on the outside of her peripheral, and Sheppard aimed, but the creature was fast and just as he fired the Wraith swiped its claws down her side.

She screamed, a high, hissing snarl of a wounded veloceraptor, and swatted him away. The Wraith went flying, and Sheppard side-stepped it neatly. The tell-tale crunch when it landed informed him that the Wraith wouldn't be getting back up any time soon. Or, you know, ever.

Now the woman _fought_. The knife in her holster was too far away to do her any good, as the Wraith drones were keeping her hands too busy. With a gesture Rodney wasn't sure he entirely caught, she pressed her palm to her seeping wounds and suddenly had a handful of bloody red, brightly glittering dagger darts.

Rodney closed the control panel, and came up cautiously beside Sheppard. "Who's winning?"

"Not sure. Aren't you supposed to be getting us off?"

"I set the ship on a collision course with an uninhabited continent of the island. Then set the self destruct. We just have to grab a Dart and get out of here."

"And grab her," John said. "And the Tunarians."

"Yes, yes, yes," Rodney said, "Use the culling beam, let's _go_."

Rodney was about to say more, but suddenly one of the Flash Woman's bright red darts was sticking out of his arm.

Guess it was hard to have perfect aim in the midst of a pack of muscle-bound smurfs.

"Oh, oh, _ow," _he said. The ship shuddered and both men stumbled to the side, thrown off balance as the inertial dampeners started to fail.

"Don't move," Sheppard hissed, and wrapped his hand around the sharp dart. The moment he did, it dissolved, dripping through his fingers and staining his hand.

"What did you do?" Rodney asked.

"Nothing, it just melted." He lifted his hand to his nose and sniffed once. "It's blood."

Both men turned to look at the Flash Woman.

She was locked, hand-to-hand, with the Wraith Queen.

"We have to--" Rodney began, but the ship shivered again, dangerously, pitching them into a wall.

"She's fine!" John said, heading now for the door. "We need to get a Dart, first. We'll come back for her."

Another high pitched hissing roar rent the air, and Rodney whirled around in time to see the Wraith Queen pulling her arm back through the bloody hole torn in the Flash Woman's stomach.

"No!" Rodney yelled. But it was too late.

Another useful ally, gone just like that. He would have at least liked to know why the Wraith couldn't drain her life.

Goddamned Wraith.

The Queen grinned in triumph, gloating over her fallen prey.

The last thing Rodney saw as Sheppard dragged him out of the hall, was the Flash Woman' eyes burn a hot, bestial golden as she fell, her last gaze imploring him to run.

* * *

Back in the 'Gate room, surrounded by Ronon and Teyla (thank god) and the now grateful Tunarians, and catching his breath, Ronon pointed at something on John's back and asked, "What's that?"

The guns of every military in the room were suddenly aimed at Sheppard. Sheppard stood stock still and put his hands out slightly.

"What's what?" He asked slowly.

Poor guy, Rodney thought. He knew Sheppard well, and could tell the man was praying very very hard that it wasn't an Iratus bug trying to burrow into the side of his neck. Rodney should reassure him it wasn't, but he was still pissed over the Tunarian incident.

"It... it looks like a bat, sir," one of the marines offered. "Hanging on your vest."

Now Sheppard twitched. He shuddered all over and got the vest off his shoulders as fast as possible. He dropped it to the floor and jumped away in a single, fluid motion, with a tiny yelp worthy of a ten year old girl.

"For god's sake, Colonel, it's just a tiny wee bat!" Carson said from somewhere near the staircase, and pushed his way through the marines and their guns to kneel beside John's discarded vest. He opened the garment carefully, revealing a small, black, snub-nosed rodent. Its body was expanding and shrinking rapidly, heart pattering in fright. "A vampire bat, looks like," Carson added.

Sheppard clamped his hands over his neck, checking for bloody patches. Rodney stifled a snicker. Oh, this was too good.

"It wouldn't have bit you," Rodney scoffed, folding his arms imperiously.

_Wait a second_. Rodney's giant brain sorted the events of the last hour into a neat list.

Flash of light. Sonic boom. Strangely attractive, mysterious red haired woman. Impervious to Wraith attack. Flashing eyes. Vampire bat. _Blood._

He shouted, "Be right back!" and took off up the stairs and out of the 'Gate room, pelting in the direction of his office.

* * *

Data in hand, Rodney went and found Carson and Sheppard in the infirmary.

He resisted the urge to burst in and immediately bellow out his findings, choosing instead to take in the scene in the exam room. Sheppard's fear and revulsion of a tiny, furry, winged rodent was equal parts amusing and fascinating.

And it was only going to get more amusing.

Sheppard was sitting on a nearby bed getting his post-mission exam from Dr. Biro as Carson tended to the bat.

"Aw, Carson, no, don't touch it!"

But Carson wasn't listening. He was cuddling the creature in his palm and crooning softly to it. "Don't be afraid, love," he told it. "The Colonel's just a 'fraidy cat."

"Am not," John muttered darkly.

The marine standing by was trying hard not to smile.

The tiny vampire bat was sitting on Carson's hand, lapping blood out of a dish balanced on the Scot's fingers. Sheppard looked away and shuddered.

"It's tamed, I think," Carson said. He reached up and stroked the bat's fuzzy head, right between its ears. It made a sort of crooning sound. "May have been some lad's pet, got scooped up with the cull."

"Er, yeah," Sheppard said, without much feeling. "Poor thing."

"Don't like bats?" Carson asked.

"Don't like vampires," Sheppard corrected. "Too much like Wraith."

"Aye, there's a point," Carson admitted. "But this wee thing could never take enough blood to hurt you."

"Still," Sheppard said, "_fangs."_

"Aye," Carson said again, and set aside the dish. The bat followed it with longing eyes, and cut a calculated glance at Sheppard that was far too intelligent to be merely animal. Rodney smirked, because, as usual, he knew _everything_.

"There's something weird about that thing," Sheppard said. "Something not right."

Carson laughed. "I didn't think you'd be the sort to get the jeebies from a small critter."

"It's the beady eyes," Sheppard said, shooting a challenging glare at the animal. Which, to Rodney's delight, it shot right back. "I don't like hamsters or rats, either," Sheppard mumbled.

The bat shot out of Carson's hand before the doctor was able to close his fingers around it. It swooped once at Sheppard's face, a wide, leisurely arc that clearly broadcasted the fact that did the bat wish to scratch his eyes out, it could have. Oh, yes, Rodney just might be in love.

Sheppard ducked, covered his hair, and peered between his elbows. The bat flew up to the top shelf of the nearest supply cabinet, and hung itself upside down.

"Now, that," Sheppard said, pointing an accusing finger, "That is damned _unnatural."_

Rodney couldn't wait any longer. He stood a little straighter in the doorway and put on his best look of smug triumph. "Actually," he said, "she claims it's very relaxing."

Sheppard straightened, and he and Carson turned to look at Rodney.

"She?" John asked.

"It's female," Rodney clarified.

Sheppard rolled his eyes.

Carson gave Rodney a fish eyed glance that clearly said, '_Did you get yourself concussed and forgot to come in and tell me?'_ "You do realize, Rodney, that it is a bat, and therefore couldna say anything of the sort?

"Were it a _real_ bat," Rodney said, shutting the curtains around the exam area, and setting down his data pad, "I would say that you were right." Carson and Sheppard exchanged a glance. Rodney stopped right under the bat and said directly to it, "But you're not a real bat, are you, Ms. Marie Susan Brooke?"

The bat made a sort of squeaking sound, ruffled its wings once, and fell. Rodney made no move to catch it. Carson started to dive, but abruptly stopped.

Where the bat once was, stood the Flash Woman, a rueful grin on her face and a hand on her hip. Her clothes were torn and blemished, a wide circle ringed with the rusty stain of dried blood revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her belly button, but she was clearly not dead.

"Busted," she said.

Beside Sheppard, who had grabbed and aimed his gun at her as soon as humanly possible, Carson was sputtering.

"But... how... _who... how?!"_

The Flash Woman, Marie, raised an eyebrow at Rodney. "That's what I'd like to know. How did you know it was me?"

Rodney gestured in the vague vicinity of her eyes. "When they flashed. Back on the ship."

"Ah," Marie said softly.

Rodney moved his hand to flap in near his own head, now. "Something twigged. I just needed a second to parse it out, without something trying to kill me. I went back over SG-1's mission reports. Sam kept very detailed notes. So did the guys in the Trust."

Marie's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "You got your hands on the Trust's paperwork on me? I'm impressed."

Rodney preened. "Nobody's database is as secure as they think it is. So, can I see it?"

"Rodney!" Sheppard hissed, because although he had not followed the last three minutes worth of conversation, he had caught what he thought was bad pick-up line.

Rodney glared at Sheppard over his shoulder. "Whaaaat?"

Sheppard made a cutting motion near his neck. "I don't think that's entirely appropriate."

Marie laughed, a high, silvery sound that wasn't at all human and made Rodney's short hairs jump to attention. From her hip holster she withdrew a long, tapered cylinder of cherry wood. It gleamed black in the overhead lights.

"I assume he meant this," she said. "I figured your eyes would go straight for my wand."

"Like, as in a magic wand?" Carson asked, mouth finally having caught up with his brain.

"Yup," she said.

"Relax, Kirk," Rodney muttered. "As if I would come onto Ms. Brooke in front of you." Sheppard rolled his eyes.

"You can call me Marie. And I don't think Rodney's my type."

Now it was Rodney who was insulted. "Why _not_?" he demanded.

Marie grinned, that same Wraith grin again, but lower this time in voltage. "I bite."

Rodney felt the blood leave his face. "Ah, that, yes. No, well, I don't think…"

"You... bite..." Carson echoed, clearly confused as to why this fact was at all worth a grin.

Rodney was clearly surrounded by idiots. "What, you haven't put two and seven together yet? Marie is a _vampire._"

* * *

Rodney noted that Sheppard was sitting as far away from Marie as he possibly could while still being close enough to hear what was going on. Honestly, the list of the man's phobias was growing exponentially.

"...but I don't understand," Carson was saying, standing at the desk and doing a little shuffling foot dance of impatience. He was peering through a magnifier at a Petri dish of the tiniest drops of Marie's blood at the same time, which sort of gave him the appearance of needing the potty. "That doesn't explain how she could crystallize the blood into a dart, as you say."

Rodney fussed over his laptop made indistinct sounds. This was genetics, meaning it was voodoo and not real science. He wanted to take apart that wand, and was sure he'd be told no.

Marie, sitting on the desk beside Carson, turned in his direction, and with a subtle head twitch and a narrowing of her unnaturally bright eyes, did... _something_.

Something that made Carson yelp and take ten giant steps backwards. "Holy Mary Mother of Christ!" Carson shouted. He seemed to stop just short of crossing himself.

Sheppard had his gun out of his thigh holster and pressing against Marie's temple before Rodney could even take in the breath to say, "What?"

"Whatever you're doing, stop," John hissed, finger squeezing gently on the trigger.

Marie stopped. The tension fell out of her posture and her eyes widened. She turned her head slowly, until the mouth of the gun bumped her nose. She grinned innocently.

Carson took those ten steps back towards the desk rather more shakily than he had taken them away, and peered back into the eyepiece.

"The cells aren't spiky anymore," he whispered.

Now _that_ was interesting. "Oooo. Do it again!" Rodney crooned and shoved Carson out of the way to get a look at the blood sample.

"Do what?" a new voice asked from the door of Carson's office, and three sets of eyes turned to take in Dr. Weir, hands crossed over her chest in a clear 'not happy' stance. Rodney spared her a quick glance and waved half-heartedly in what might have been a greeting or might have been an order to shut up. His eyes were glued to the Petri dish.

The sudden chill at his back was most likely Weir's look becoming 'not-happier.' He looked up.

"Who is this?" Weir asked slowly, as her eyes roamed over Marie, sitting on the edge of the desk, "Why is she in your office, Carson, and why does Colonel Sheppard have his gun aimed at her head?"

Carson smiled nervously and rubbed the palms of his hands on his lab coat. "Hello, Elizabeth. It's a... it's a long story."

On the desk, Marie just snorted.


	2. Chapter 2

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Two**

By **Cat Latin** and **Vega**

* * *

"_What does tamed mean?"_

"_It's something that's been too often neglected. It means, 'to create ties'..."_

* * *

_In this woman's home reality, we are characters on a science fiction television program._ _We are not real. _Rodney had read the file, months and months ago, but that was different than having the evidence sitting right in front of you.

The senior staff of Atlantis reviewed the file on Marie Susan's adventures with SG-1 and the Trust. And with huge suspensions of disbelief, and large metaphorical grains of salt, they were also briefed on the vampire's adventures sliding through alternate realities including, but not limited to, Harry Potter, Hercules and The Phantom of the Opera.

Marie had surrendered her wand, knife, and a leather sack filled with glass vials containing the compound that gave her the ability to teleport. To _Slip_, she called it. The wand and knife were on the briefing room table; the vials were currently safely under lock and key in Rodney's second favorite lab, where Zelenka couldn't get his grubby hands on them.

Normally, Rodney had something to do with the awkward silences that would descend on the staff room in times of uncertainty. It was nice to have that focus shifted, however temporarily.

No one was touching the coffee, or the Athosian pastry laid out on the long table next to the vampire's gear, not even Rodney, who was wired on new discovery and had no appetite, not even _Ronon_. All eyes were on Marie, benignly sipping from a blood bag with a straw, like it was the tastiest juice box ever.

Rodney took in his colleagues' expressions: Elizabeth, shrewd and skeptical, Sheppard, revulsion and distrust, Ronon, who Rodney thought would treat the vampire the same as the hated Wraith, was watching Marie with quiet interest; Teyla and Carson were completely fascinated.

Sheppard broke the silence. "From the sound of it, you seem to bring trouble with you wherever you go," he muttered, and then Rodney had to intervene.

"Pot calling the kettle black, don't you think? And, hey, it's always so darn _quiet_ around here, Colonel. What's _with_ you?"

"She waltzes into Cheyenne Mountain, a total stranger, and immediately charms the daylights out of SG-1? She's suddenly a pal of O'Neill's? Of _T'ealc's_? Doesn't this sound oddly familiar to anyone?"

"You are comparing Marie Susan to Lucius Lovin," Teyla said shrewdly. And to Marie she explained: "He was a con man who possessed a potion that made everyone who breathed it want to do his bidding."

"Except for me," Sheppard said darkly.

"Because you had a cold and couldn't smell it," Ronon said. "You got the sniffles now?"

Sheppard glared at Ronon. "Fine," he said. "We'll supply you with what you need, and you can brew more of your _magical travel potion_," he said this with a sneer, "and you can do it from a quarantined cell. Then you can get the hell out of Dodge." Rodney opened his mouth to protest, but Elizabeth beat him to it.

"Colonel, it is not for you to decide--"

"When the security of the city is at stake, it _is_ for me to decide--"

Wow, Rodney thought, Sheppard's _never _played that card so brazenly; why now?

Voices of dissent, getting louder, two then three, then more, until a shrill whistle silenced them.

Everyone stopped, to silently stare at Marie Susan. She looked at them steadily, and finished her blood bag with a loud slurp. Sheppard winced. "You're all beginning to act out of character," she said quietly. "It's a byproduct of being in proximity to me."

"Like a glamour," Carson said softly. When faced with several looks of polite incomprehension, and Rodney's eye roll, he explained. "It's from fairy lore. Otherworldly folk have a kind of magic that makes them appear highly attractive and likeable."

"I've read a fairy tale or two. Don't they usually use it to sabotage things and get their way?"

"Sheppard!"

Marie said, "I'm used to this, but none of you are. Colonel Sheppard's right. I should go."

"This is stupid," Ronon said. "She's not a Wraith. She's not a Replicator. She's got the good kind of paperwork from the SGC, the stuff that you people seem to think is so important--"

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. "Us people?"

"Let her stay," Ronon said. "Let our team keep an eye on her." He gave Sheppard a steady gaze, and then addressed Elizabeth. "When have I ever asked for anything? Besides," and his placid face was replaced with a feral grin. "I heard about what happened on the Hive Ship. I want to spar with her."

"And I want to hear the stories of her journey," Teyla said.

"And I want to know what makes her tick," Rodney said, not looking up from his data pad. "Carson probably wants to dissect her. And Sheppard here needs courage, a heart and a brain."

"Rodney!" Elizabeth closed the laptop containing Marie's file, and folded her hands. The Commander of Atlantis was normally the poster child for informed decision making, but now, she looked like she was trying out different responses in her head. She finally settled on, "So what happens now?"

Marie said, "I could be out of your hair in twenty-four hours if you care about my health, sooner if you don't. If you don't mind extending your hospitality for about thirty days, I could use the time to brew more potion, and then I can be on my way. While I'm here, of course, I'm willing to assist the expedition in any way I can. And, um…" She sat a little straighter in her chair and waved the empty blood bag. "It's not a great idea for me to deplete Carson's blood supply. I'll need a _pomme du sang_."

"A blood apple," Elizabeth translated.

"A donor," Sheppard said with disgust. "Someone she can drain dry. Why am I the only one here who thinks this is a bad idea?"

Rodney sighed theatrically. "Did you actually read the file you were given or do you need us to fill you in with interpretive dance? No one gets hurt. Someone volunteers. Apparently the experience is rather pleasant. Somehow, I don't think we'll have a problem finding a willing body. Kavanaugh's an Anne Rice fan, though I don't recommend him, Marie. His blood probably tastes of stupidity."

"Rodney!"

"Just saying…"

"Enough." Elizabeth stood. The rest of the room's occupants followed suit. "Colonel Sheppard, go get quarters set up for our visitor. _Comfortable_ ones. Rodney, Miss Brooke, follow me."

Elizabeth turned on her heels and exited the room. The rest of the people scattered as well, Teyla and Ronon keeping their speculative gaze on Rodney and Marie until they were out of sight. For a second it seemed that John was going to say something, but then he snapped his mouth shut and stalked away, in the opposite direction of the office.

Elizabeth was already several strides ahead of them when Marie turned and whispered, "That was abrupt."

Rodney moved quickly to catch up with Elizabeth, and she followed Rodney's brusque pace through the hallway.

"Nothing gets done in staff meetings," Rodney muttered. "Everyone knows that." His eyes were on his data pad, trusting his feet to the path, already delegating some of his week's work to Simpson and Zelenka, so he could solve the equation right in front of him.

When they got to the office, Elizabeth offered them both seats. She took her own behind her desk, settling into the chair like the desk was a shield between herself and the fantastic thing sitting beside Rodney.

"Doctor McKay," she said formally, "as the person who clearly knows the most about Miss Brooke and her… particularities, I'm putting you in charge of her safety and comfort. Do what you can for the next thirty days to help her with her potion."

Marie shifted forward in her seat. "Doctor Weir," she said softly. "I like this reality. I'll give you whatever help I can offer against your foes. I don't have a lot in the way of technology that you can recreate here, but I'll do my best."

"I understand," Elizabeth said, but clearly she didn't. Rodney wasn't entirely sure where the thrust of this opening was headed either, not until Marie sat back again and smiled ruefully and said:

"So, you don't have to ask Rodney to_ spy_ for you."

Elizabeth's eyes got colder than Rodney recalled ever having seen them before. "Very well. Then Rodney, I want you to set up a testing rota for Miss Brooke's 'magic'." Both Rodney and Marie grimaced at the verbalized air quotations but said nothing. "See what we can use."

"Yes," Rodney said, softly. Elizabeth was hard set against liking Marie, he figured, or at least throwing up as many defensive personal walls as she could to keep from falling under Marie's glamour.

Rodney didn't blame Elizabeth – Marie's very existence made them all uncomfortable. Not only because it proved that magic and the supernatural _could _be real, but because it made them all question the validity of their own existences.

His stomach dropped again as he remembered the words from the file – _characters in a science fiction show_. Not real. Fiction.

He resisted the urge to pinch himself.

He just wished that Elizabeth would be a little less openly hostile. Marie had been nothing but helpful and kind so far. Marie had taken severe battle damage to save Rodney and Sheppard's life. Rodney just couldn't understand why both Sheppard and Elizabeth were being so… awful.

"Thank you, Rodney," Elizabeth intoned. "You may leave. I want to speak to Marie alone."

Rodney debated arguing, that if he been put in charge of Marie, then he could damn well stay and hear anything that Elizabeth had to say to her, but the hard look in Marie's eyes gave him shivers all the way down his spine. He was suddenly eager to be dismissed. He rose, clutched his tablet to his chest, and exited with as much grace as possible.

Without a word to Chuck, he shooed the technician away from his own computer and set about hacking an audio feed out of the office to play into his own personal earbud. He was just in time to hear Elizabeth ask how Marie was feeling.

"Still a bit hungry," Marie admitted. Rodney wished he could see her facial expression. He couldn't tell if she was taking the piss or not. "Healing from something like a stomach wound is a bit energy consuming."

"Carson can supply you with more blood, if that's what you mean."

There was a pause, and then, "That's very kind of you, Doctor Weir, but I think, at this point, it would be better for everyone if I had a _pomme du sang_."

Elizabeth was silent.

Marie went on: "Look, I need... as much as I appreciate going to Carson for the 'juice box special', I'm depleting Atlantis' stores of emergency blood with every meal. And that's not fair to you or your people."

"Yes, Carson did express concern," Elizabeth admitted grudgingly.

"Normally I'd go out into a forest and hunt a wild animal, but there aren't any here."

"We could take you to the Mainland. Leave you with the Athosians."

"I don't think John would appreciate having to fly me back and forth every day for my testing."

"So what do you want?"

"... a volunteer."

"_What?_"

"I want you to ask someone to volunteer to be my _pomme du sang_."

Elizabeth's voice got tighter: "Volunteer to ... to let you suck the blood out of their veins?"

"Well, you don't have to make it sound so clinical. It's a lot nicer on the receiving end than that."

"No offence, Miss Brooke, but you're talking about a team of highly trained military and scientific people who don't have the time to waste recovering from daily bloody loss, and frankly, are probably too damned scared of the Wraith to want to hold still for someone who is just like one."

"I'm like the Wraith?" She sounded insulted and Rodney winced.

"Aren't you?"

"Okay. Fine." Marie sounded like she was speaking through clenched teeth. "I only asked out of courtesy, anyway."

"Out of courtesy!"

"Doctor Wier, Atlantis is a very insular community. If I stop going to Carson for blood, he'll know I'm getting it elsewhere, and it'll just be a matter of time before the rumour mill gets going and people start flying into a panic because they think I'm out there in the city stalking them. If you made a public announcement asking for a volunteer to come forth then it will allay the fear that I'm a mindless beast. Do you really _want_ that kind of panic in your city?"

"...no."

"I could do it on my own, Doctor. I could seduce anyone I wanted into my embrace. That's just the way I am. But I won't because I don't want to be feeding from one of your team members under your nose. I am making this request out of respect. _So_. Will you ask for volunteers?"

Elizabeth sighed. "I'll send out a city wide memo explaining your… request. We'll see what can be done."

"Yes, thank you…. Doctor Weir, can I… I mean, just a… can I say something personal?"

There was grudging silence and Rodney held his breath. He assumed that Elizabeth nodded, because Marie went on:

"You're angry. I get that. I've entered into your world and turned it on its ear. But I… I want you to know that it's not your fault. A Mary Sue always threatens the strong female characters. You're angry at yourself for feeling threatened, and embarrassed that you're being irrational. Don't be. It's not your fault. Think of me like… like a drug. Like something that makes you act out of character. There's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point being harsh on yourself for it either. If you just relax—"

"Thank you, Miss Brooke," Elizabeth ground out, interrupting. "I believe I understand your meaning. Good day."

There was a sigh and the sound of cloth against cloth, a body rising to its feet.

"Good day, Doctor Weir," Marie said softly, and then there was the woosh of the door opening.

Rodney hastily cut the feed and disentangled himself from Chuck's station. He met Marie at the end of the bridge.

"That went fucking well," Marie groused, running her hands through her hair. "Well, babysitter-o-mine, where first?"

Rodney swung into the first topic he could think of: "I want to know more about the voodoo that Carson was spewing. I've seen Egyptian gods come to life, discovered that Atlantis is real, and met space vampires, all of which have a scientific explanation--at least the Wraith variety of vampires. I want to know how this 'glamour' works."

Marie chuckled. "Damn, I could almost _see_ the quotes around the word."

"I want to know what makes you tick," Rodney went on, ignoring her. "Can you control this glamour at all? Like you can control the density of your blood?"

"Somewhat," Marie admitted. "I've learned to use it as a weapon. Or as camouflage."

"What would happen if you turned this glamour on to maximum?"

"Once it's on, I might not be able to turn it off."

"Well, how dangerous can it be?"

"Like a bomb?"

"Please, I build bombs in my sleep. Later today, in the mess hall, five o' clock, I want you to crank it to eleven."

Marie rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Doctor. Am I free to head back to the infirmary? I'm still peckish."

She sagged momentarily, and for a second Rodney could see it, how actually weary she was. What had happened to her before she'd even ended up on that backwater planet? Had she slept yet? They'd done nothing but keep her busy since the moment she'd appeared – fighting wraith, being examined, tedious staff meetings, and now Elizabeth.

If Rodney were Marie, he's just want some peace and quiet by now.

Marie straightened again, a little grin tucked into the corner of her mouth, like she really was as carefree as she was broadcasting, and waited for his response. Rodney shook himself out of his thoughts and said: "Yes, yes, go."

He watched with annoyance as a Marine standing in the control room detached himself from his post to follow Marie as she moved off down the hall. Sheppard had wasted no time.

Rodney snorted, and wondered when Sheppard would come around and start his Captain Kirk routine on the poor woman. Rodney had done his research. In all fan fiction, the leading man of the story is supposed to fall helplessly in love with the Mary Sue, right?

And if anyone was the hero of this strange life of theirs – or anti-hero, maybe – it was Sheppard.

For the first time, Rodney stopped and really looked at this impossibility in undead human form. The Marine got in the way, but still he let his eyes linger on what little he could see of her back, the side of her ear.

Glamour or no, Marie was a beautiful woman, brighter than life somehow. Rodney shook his head and got back to work.

* * *

Word of Marie traveled at the speed of light, and a hacked version of Marie's file appeared on all the servers within minutes of the senior staff meeting. Rodney chose to ignore that infraction, as it saved him the time of explaining the situation ad infinitum.

While Marie sat in Carson's office, drinking from a beaker, they began working out a schedule. Marie was given time to brew her potion with Rodney observing, where there were slots for her to spar with Teyla and Ronon in order to asses her skills and technique for integration into the regular Atlantis regime, where Rodney and Zelenka were to track the environmental and biological changes she underwent as she cast spells and performed supernatural feats, where Rodney and Carson would asses her physicality.

The absolute worst part of this enterprise was that Rodney had to work with Botany for some of the answers. That afternoon, once the schedule was set, Rodney left his lab and he accompanied Marie to the glorified plant lab, where she presented Parrish and Brown with a list of ingredients she'd need to brew her potion.

"The best we can do with some of these is to provide you with their closest cousins," Doctor Brown offered, making a point of staying on the far side of the table from Rodney. Agony.

Marie's eyes cut between Katie and himself, as if she could smell the tension. Great.

"That should work, if they're gathered fresh," Marie said, yanking her attention back to the list. "I've found that it's usually okay to fudge it with the closest local sample."

"That means a trip to the mainland. Possibly to some other worlds, if we can't find what need in current season. Someone at the Athosian settlement should be able to help us."

"I'll put in for a jumper pilot, and make arrangements for us to leave first thing tomorrow," Rodney said. He looked at his watch and smirked. "Almost five. Let's go get some dinner."

* * *

Marie joined Rodney in line at the mess and helped herself to a cup of coffee. "I could drink it if I wanted to," she said at his raised eyebrow. "Besides, it helps me to blend in more."

"We're not interested in you blending in. And by the looks of things—Barker, what are you _staring_ at? Wait—have you turned on your mojo? Because I wanted to—"

"It's always _on_, Rodney. And no, I haven't cranked it yet."

They settled at an empty table. Rodney began to bolt his dinner, while opening his laptop and pulling his latest brilliant creation out of his coat pocket, with reverence, of course. He gestured impatiently at Marie. "Give me your hand. Just think of this as a bracelet attached to a wire."

"Attached to your laptop," Marie said sourly, offering her hand. "If that's a life signs indicator, it's not going to show anything."

"It detects subtle energies both bio-organic and _other_, for lack of a better scientific term in this context—_there_. Now, Marie. Do the voodoo that you do."

And nothing really happened, that Rodney could see with his naked eye, except, and Rodney was totally willing to chalk it up to high hopes, Marie became _sharper_ somehow, while the rest of the world took on a slight fuzziness.

"Huh," was all he could think of to say to that.

And then Kavanaugh showed up dressed in a low-hanging black teeshirt with his greasy hair floating around his shoulders and _knelt at her feet_, chin up and eyes shining with earnest lust

"Uh," Marie said, startling back as Kavanaugh reached up and put his hands very high up on her thighs.

"Master," he sighed and Marie actually bolted upright and jumped _backwards _over the back of the chair, getting it between her and the long-haired git.

"No," she spat. "Absolutely _not."_

Kavanaugh made a confused face, his normally squinty expression drawing even more tight. Rodney was stuck between horror and a choking laugh.

"I am, without a doubt, _nobody's Master_."

Kavanaugh tried to pull himself to his feet, but his eyes had glazed over, glassy, and Rodney could see that the readings coming from Marie's wristband were rising sharply. "But I want to offer myself--"

Jesus, Kavanaugh was more than just his normal tactless imbecile self. He was _drugged_. He was high, and Marie was doing it to him. Rodney felt his throat tighten with anticipation and fear; what the hell was going to happen _now?_

"Which you can do perfectly well without any of this sort of BDSM bullshit," Marie countered. "The answer is _no_."

Kavanaugh whined, actually whined, "But I _want..."_

"No you don't, trust me," Marie snapped.

"_Turn me, please_."

He moved around the chair and Marie ripped the wrist band off and leapt into the air with such grace that it took Rodney half a second to realize that she hadn't come back _down_. She was above the floor, perched on the top of a door out to a balcony, clinging to the top of the door frame with curled fingers, her boots pressed flat against the wall.

"Get this sick fuck away from me, McKay!" Marie snarled. "I've turned it off!"

Then a harsh voice yelled: "Okay, that's it! That's enough!"

It was Sheppard, who had been frowning at the proceedings from the sidelines since Marie and Rodney had walked in. He approached their table, scowling. He grabbed Kavanaugh by the shoulders and hauled him bodily away, spinning the dazed man into the embrace of a waiting Marine.

"Get him to the infirmary," Sheppard snapped. Then he raised his eyes to Marie, scowled harder. He twisted the furious glare to Rodney. "And get this mess cleaned up."

Sheppard spun on his heel and stalked away. The people around them hastily turned their attention back to their meals. Rodney looked up and discovered he was alone. He caught a glimpse of Marie going out the door, to the balcony. He didn't blame her.

Rodney closed down his laptop and scooped it and the bracelet into his arms, following her. When he stepped through the door, he saw that she was as far away from it as she could get. Rodney stood in the doorway, watching her.

Marie shivered, leaning her palms against the rail of the balcony. Her back was a long, smooth dip, all her weight on her hands, one foot raised, the toes tapping mindlessly on the gunmetal grey patterned floor.

So much of Atlantis looked like a ZedPM, Rodney thought. It was all amber stained glass, calming sea-green, and not a straight line in existence that didn't fracture off into a diagonal before it went out of sight. Atlantis looked like the light sparking off the ocean, the light of a mandarin sunset, like the one Rodney had found Marie watching.

She was almost in complete profile to Rodney, in the far corner of the balcony so she could face the sun.

He hesitated by the door, felt it swoosh shut just behind him. It was probably time to go get Marie's supper – they were purposefully small amounts, so they could be spaced out along the day. Carson wanted to see Marie before her next feeding, to determine something about cells or some other kind of voodoo claptrap. Sheppard should be leaping up to the task of fetching her, or Ronon maybe. All these single men, and a pretty Mary Sue... but if Kavanaugh was any example, it was going to get ugly in a few days.

Rodney wasn't a genius for nothing. He'd read the essays, the dissertations on self-insert fanfictions that the SGC and Area 51 personnel who'd worked on Marie's case had included in the files. There were reams of pages printed from Livejournal communities and Yahoo Groups on the nature of the Mary Sue, and each of the papers had the key characteristics highlighted in a rainbow of colors.

The file had been forwarded by a letter from a psychologist warning researchers of the potential dangers of working directly with Marie Susan Brooke herself: _Bad things will happen around her, as she is the black hole of the plot, so be prepared. You may find her magnetically attractive, funny, or interesting despite marital status, character, or sexual preference. Cease and desist all contact with the Mary Sue if this is the case, and remove yourself from the project. When trouble does come, let the Mary Sue do her thing – it's her job to save the day._

Rodney had read the essays, Wikipedia'd the article on Mary Sues, and now was just waiting for Sheppard to half rip off his shirt and bare his neck for Marie. Whenever it struck, the strange attractiveness, Rodney was certain it wouldn't be subtle. He was also certain it would be Sheppard, because Sheppard was surely the main character, and Sheppard was the one that all the girls wanted, and probably some of the boys, if Rodney was honest with himself. Sheppard was Kirk, so Sheppard was going to be the one that Marie snagged.

That was the way this whole thing worked.

Rodney stopped twisting his hands in front of him and looked back up at Marie. She still hadn't moved, all her weight on one leg, jutting her hip out in a delicious curve that Rodney was sure Sheppard would have noticed immediately and first. The last rays of the golden light crested against her pale skin, momentarily painting her face with the rosy glow of life. Her hair blazed copper.

The sun sank slowly, hiding behind the horizon. The shadow of night inched down Marie's face, leaving her hair once again merely brownish-red, the color of brunette spent under too many sunny days, her flesh cold, white, glowing with the strange sheen that marked her subtly as Other.

By inches, her death crept back.

Sunset slithered down her spine, pooling in the little dip a the bottom of her back and she shivered again, all over, eyes closing, lips parting slowly, just slightly, to show the bottom pointed tips of two wet incisors, her head falling back just a little, stretching the smooth pale skin of the scar-free side of her neck taut.

Rodney sucked in a little breath, watching. Oh, yes, Sheppard was definitely going to fall for this one.

She heard his breath, probably had heard the door, his heartbeat, his foot falls. She opened her eyes again with a soft little sigh that sounded like the tail end of a pleasure-gasp, and flicked her eyes towards Rodney. Her irises were yellow around the outside, but still blue in the middle, not entirely succumbed to whatever emotion it was that was tainting them. They glowed faintly, throwing her cheekbones and eyebrows into sharp relief in the lengthening evening shadows.

"I didn't like that," she said slowly.

Rodney tried to grab hold of his brain and shake it. "Like?" he echoed stupidly. "What?"

"That. Don't ask me to do it again. I don't enjoy manipulating people, even for science."

Rodney shivered once and rubbed his arms.

"Have you ever died, Rodney?" It was a whisper so faint that Rodney had to take a moment to figure out exactly what she had said.

He considered lying, licking his lips and hesitating. Then he said, "Yes." He had died once. He had died and known _everything_. And he had traded it to come back here. Where he knew nothing. But where he could make a difference.

"I died begging," she said softly. She leaned down and rested her forehead against the cold metal of the railing. "With my last breath, I begged him not to. I said no."

Rodney felt his stomach clench, but made no answer. What _could_ he say? He had been violated by Kolya, had his arm sliced open, the small tendons and muscles in there toyed with, but he had never suffered the extreme horror and pain that Marie must have known.

"I can't do what Kavanaugh wants. I won't do it someone else. Not after…"

She cut herself off.

"... last time," she said with a sigh. It wasn't what she was going to say, Rodney was certain of that. He'd have bet even money that what she hadn't said was a name.

Rodney cleared his throat and said, "We'll keep Kavanaugh away."

"Good."

Marie reached down and spread her hand over the place where the Wraith Queen's arm had gone through. She was in a military-black teeshirt, and it looked funny paired with her brown leather pants, but Rodney could visualize a gaping tear in the shirt all the same.

"That's the second time someone's put an arm through my stomach."

Rodney felt his throat tighten, the dinner he'd bolted rising. He swallowed heavily.

"I'm sorry," he said, though whether it was an apology for asking Marie to turn up the glamour or sympathy for her obvious discomfort, he wasn't sure. "What… what did you do about it last time?"

Marie shrugged. "Went crazy for a little while. Seemed like the thing to do. Deanna Troi helped me get through it."

Rodney resisted the urge to shake his head or check his ears. Deanna Troi. _Star Trek. _Shit.

"And this time?" he asked, wishing for a brief second that Heightmeyer were still here, that Marie could go to talk to her. Rodney barely admitted it to himself, but Heightmeyer had been one of the few people who had really understood what it meant to be in a high stress combat situation when you had never trained for it, never expected it. When shit kept happening to you, and there was nothing that you could do about it but survive and cope.

Marie huffed out a little laugh, the glow of her gaze fading back to that almost violet blue, and turned on her foot, rested one elbow and her hip against the rail. She crossed her other arm under her breasts to also rest on the rail, plumping them against her arm by accident.

"I figured I'd take Ronon up on his offer to beat the shit out me. Pain is always a good distraction, and I can feel Miroku itching under my skin."

Her eyes raked down Rodney's body, and he swallowed again. "Um," he said.

"Was there anything you wanted?" she asked with a sideways grin. "Before I go see Carson, I mean."

_Oh, oh, that was almost dirty_, Rodney thought feverishly. _Sheppard is so screwed._


	3. Chapter 3

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Three**

By ruinsofmysanity, cat_latin, and losyark

* * *

"_If you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine, I'll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest... You have hair the colour of gold... The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you." The fox fell silent and stared at the little prince for a long while. "Please... tame me!"_

* * *

Rodney was dreaming. He knew this, of course, because he'd had this dream a hundred times since they had discovered the other Weir frozen in one of the labs below. Since he had found out that in another reality, he had drowned.

But this time, instead of in the control room, he was in the puddlejumper bay, and the only thing that lay between a watery grave and safety was the hatch to the only occupied jumper in sight. He knew Elizabeth and Ford and Sheppard were on the other side, but they couldn't see him. He was banging on the hatch for them to open it, _oh god the water's rising._ Just open the damn door! _And now it's up to my knees and it's freezing._ Bang bang bang. _Just please, let me in! Let me in! _BANG BANG BANG. _It's too high, too high! _BANG BANG BANG. _Sheppard! _BANG BANG BANG. BANG BANG –

_Bang. _Rodney came awake with a start, the sheets pulled around him in a jumbled mess, his shirt soaked with sweat. _Bang bang bang._ Rodney thought he heard it coming from the hall.

He was on his feet in a moment, his heart still pounding from the nightmare, and to the door a second later. He stepped out into the corridor and stood still, straining to hear. Nothing.

"Fuck," he said, rubbing his face. "This has got to st--"

_Bang bang bang._

So he hadn't dreamed it. He followed the noise, and ended up at the door he had just left: Marie's room.

"Let me outta here!" It was muffled, but definitely Marie.

Rodney thought _open_ and the door slid to the side, just as Marie's fist came down for another blow. Instead of hitting the door, however, it landed squarely on Rodney's nose.

Oh, he did not need this right now.

"Oh, I am so sorry, Rodney." Marie made a move toward him, but he waved her off with his non-nose holding hand.

"'nis fine," he managed, and _oh god, there's blood._

"No, you're bleeding. Come and sit down."

He really didn't want to, but the sight of his own blood was starting to cause that whoozy feeling, so he

thought it better to do what the pretty vampire lady said than to pass out on the floor right there.

She led him to the bed, where he eased himself down, wincing as his arm got jostled and bumped into his face. Marie ran off somewhere and came back with a fluffy white towel.

"Here," she said, pressing it gently to his nose.

Rodney sucked in a tight breath as fresh pain flashed for a moment, then eased off as the pressure grew steady.

"'Nanks," he managed, titling his head back, trying to stop the flow. It took about five minutes, but eventually he was able to remove the towel without splattering blood everywhere.

"Are you okay?" Marie asked, and Rodney looked up to see that she was now standing on the opposite side of the room. She stood with arms crossed over her chest and an uncomfortable look on her face.

Did the blood make her whoozy too? No, hungry more like. Rodney knew that she hadn't once yet had her fill of blood at any of the meals that she'd been offered. And she'd had a great deal of trauma to heal. Whatever blood she had consumed had probably gone towards her stores of supernatural calories or whatever, and none to abate the hunger she was feeling right now.

Rodney touched the bridge of his nose gingerly but quickly winced and pulled his hand away. "I think it might be broken, actually." Oh, this is exactly what he needed right now. He might very well go into shock from the lack of blood, and his hypoglycemia was sure to kick in at any moment, and-

"Repairo."

"Abraca what?" Rodney said, looking up to see Marie with wand in hand, twirling it in small circles, pointed at his face. "Oh, come on now," he started. "That is really not going to--" What the hell? What was that? There was a tingle in his nose, like it had fallen asleep and was now just waking up. Like pins and needles, but without the pain.

He looked at Marie, who was smiling and after she had finished her spell and returned her wand to its holder, her face broke into a grin. She came and sat next to him on the bed. "You were saying?" she said.

The tingling had stopped, so Rodney slowly reached up and touched his nose. It felt fine. Absolutely fine.

"Marie, how--?"

"I'm a wizard, remember?"

"I remember you saying you were, but I don't remember _magic_ actually being real."

"You should have listened to me."

"Maybe you shouldn't have hit me in the nose in the first place."

Marie pursed her lips. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted to get someone's attention. I couldn't get out."

"Couldn't get out?"

"The door wouldn't open for me. Jeeze, did I hit you a little too hard?"

"Listen, all you do," Rodney got up and went to the door, broken nose forgotten, "is wave your hand in front of the crystals here," he demonstrated, "and voila!" The door opened no problem. Rodney thought the doors closed again. "Now you try."

Marie got up and joined him, and swiping her hand over the controls, nothing happened. She put one hand on her hip and gestured toward the unopened door. Rodney had been ready to give her a smug smirk and a "I told you so" but instead he felt his pride shrink a little bit. He frowned, thinking.

Ah, but there it was.

"You're dead," he stated with a double snap of the fingers.

"And you're a genius. Apparently," she said with a huff.

"Ha ha, you're incredibly helpful, you know that?"

Marie looked contrite. "Come on, Rodney. What's the matter? Why can't I open it?"

"Because Atlantis doesn't recognize you as a living being, and so it won't respond to you as one."

"So what's the plan?"

"The plan, is that I go back to bed and get some rest, and you do the same. We'll figure it out in the morning."

"It _is_ the morning." She gestured to the window, the thin curtains letting though a diffused morning glow.

Rodney frowned. He hadn't noticed, not at all. Perhaps he had been too busy trying not to bleed to death, but still…

"What time is it?"

Marie glanced at the clock on the side table. "It's 6:32 am."

"Really?"

Marie rolled her eyes, and smiled slightly. "Are we doing this again?"

"No, no," Rodney said, distracted, and found his way back to the bed and sat down. "It's just, I thought it was…" his thoughts were blurry. Maybe he had lost a lot of blood. The bed next to him dipped a little, and Marie put a hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?"

Rodney could feel the cold of her skin through his shirt. It sent goosebumps over his neck and arm.

"Yeah, it's just… never mind. Too much going on right now. Not enough sleep, you know?" He tried to laugh, but suddenly all he could think of was the cold water around his waist and trying to get into a jumper when no one knew he was there.

"Rodney," Marie said softly and leaned into his face. For a brief second, Rodney thought she was going to kiss him.

The panic that usually accompanied the realization that somebody wanted to be intimate with him surged in his chest, and he actually had half-closed his eyes before he felt the warm slide of something liquid on his upper lip. Marie squinted her eyes at it, and Rodney realized that she hadn't been trying to kiss him at all.

"You're bleeding again," she said softly.

He reached up to his nose and his hand came away with some fresh, dark red blood on the tips of his fingers. Marie reached over and gently ran her finger along his lower lip, where he could feel the warm blood settle.

She brought her finger to her mouth and sucked it, and Rodney's insides suddenly grew hot and he wanted to look anywhere but at Marie.

But she was half smiling and it didn't seem threatening at all.

"It was going to drip on your shirt," she said, not a spot of red on her lips or teeth. "I'm not too good at healing spells. I don't, well, ever need them. Much better at dueling." She seemed embarrassed. Almost apologetic. "Better have Carson check you out."

Rodney nodded, a bit dumbstruck, and said "Sure. Of course."

Marie smiled. She stood and reached out her hand to Rodney. He took and used it to steady himself as he stood. She pressed the already soiled towel back into his hands, and he held it up to his face. She turned him towards the door, guiding him as he concentrated on keeping his head back. He had to wave his hand in front of the crystals so they could get out.

"If it's not too much trouble, could you rig something so that I don't have to pound every time I need to get out of a room?" Marie asked as they made their way down the hall. "I think one broken nose is enough for today."

Rodney smiled weakly. Behind him, he could hear the marine that Sheppard had assigned detatch himself from the wall and follow in their trail like an iron filing to Marie's magnet. Rodney tried not to wonder why the man hadn't helped Marie himself.

* * *

Carson packed Rodney's nose with cotton and made him lay down with an ice pack on his face while Marie heated up a beaker of blood in a microwave. She sat back and watched the proceedings with mild amusement, sipping her blood like it was hot tea and only pausing to make a comment about how happy she was that she no longer required hospitals.

Carson had breakfast brought to Rodney, along with _decaf_ coffee ("Carson! I need my caffeine!"/ "Rodney, you don't need even more hypertension!"), and when the swelling had gone down enough for Carson to take a look, he declared Rodney's nose admirably repaired.

The cartilage had at least been refused, and should only leave a thin scar along the tissue inside with no outwardly visible marks beyond the dark black bruising that was already starting to spread around the bottom of his eyes.

Though they had planned to go to the mainland that day, Rodney instead spent the day in the infirmary, alternately icing his nose and fiddling with another bracelet that he'd demanded Zelenka drop off along with his micro tool kit and a bunch of copper wire and control crystals. Marie stayed with him, fetching laptops and electro pads, batteries and screws and real caffeinated coffee from the nurse's station whenever she could give Carson the slip. She never said it, but he knew it was because he had been charged with her safekeeping, and while Marie resented the implication that if she didn't have a babysitter she would slaughter the whole Expedition in their sleep, she respected Elizabeth's decree.

A pair of armed Marines stood in the doorway at all times. Marie paid them no mind beyond the genuine smiles she flashed when she needed past them for one thing or another out in the main medical bay.

Rodney tried not to resent the fact that while Ronon and Teyla had come to share lunch with him and commiserate on his bad luck, Sheppard was nowhere to be seen. Sheppard was usually the first person to get under Carson's feet when any member of his team was in the infirmary. Rodney tried not to be hurt by the fact that Sheppard's obvious revulsion for Marie overpowered his friendship with Rodney.

_For now,_ Rodney reminded himself.

In the afternoon, Marie submitted to a ghastly number of physical tests that Rodney felt abysmal for putting her through for the sake of research. She ran for _two hours straight _on the treadmill before Carson told her it was enough, she could stop, clearly nothing was changing. And she was able to lift practically ten times her own body weight. Yet her lungs didn't puff, her heart didn't beat, and the effort caused very little strain and no sweat beyond a strange beading of blood across her forehead.

By the evening, Carson declared the tests over and Rodney fit enough to go sleep in his own bed. A nurse was appointed, however, to radio him on the hour, every hour, in case he slipped into a worse concussion. Rodney was warned that if he didn't answer, then the nurse would be sent there personally. With a cold bucket of water.

Exhausted, sore, and with a killer headache, Rodney allowed Marie to escort him back to his quarters and bid him goodnight at the door. He had his laptop under his arm and was twirling the unfinished bracelet in his other hand.

"What's this?" Marie asked, reaching out to touch the bracelet that he'd been repairing all day. Rodney lifted his hand at the same time Marie reached for the ornament, and her cold fingers brushed against the underside of his wrist, making him shiver with the coolness of her skin and the sensation of the caress.

"You—" Rodney said, then stopped. His mouth felt cottony, and he blamed the pain medication. He swallowed once. "You'll see," he managed. He gave her a weak smile, holding his face as still as possible to prevent more pain, and turned away.

He left Marie with a promise to come fetch her in the morning.

It was only after he'd entered the room and carefully washed his face in the bathroom and changed into his sleep pants that he realized that Sheppard not visiting him once all day actually made him _angry_. He sat down to his desk and pulled out his fine wire working tools, setting them to the bracelet.

What the hell? John always visited Rodney when he was in the infirmary. True, Rodney hadn't messaged him to tell him that he was going, but Rodney had missed the morning debrief just as surely as Carson had attended. Of course the whole senior staff would have known that Rodney had been accidentally smashed in the face.

_God,_ Rodney thought. _Sheppard is really starting to take this sulk about Marie too far._

* * *

Rodney felt significantly better in the morning, even though his face was a stunning Rorschach pattern of black and purple. He popped a few aspirin and made his way to Marie's quarters, where she called through the door that she was almost ready and to come in.

She still couldn't open it, but, Rodney assured himself, one hand on the bracelet in his pocket, that would change as soon as he could manage it. He walked in at her invitation, (_Had he ever nodded an invitation to Marie formally? He couldn't remember. Did she require one?) _and hesitated by the door. She was just tugging on her boots, her hair damp from a shower. Today her shirt was red and purple, with lacing between the valley of her breasts. It was something that Rodney was sure he'd seen on Teyla before.

"Youch," Marie said, looking up. She approached slowly and raised one hand to his cheek, just on the edge of the spectacular bruise. Her blue eyes widened in sympathy. "I'm sorry."

He waved the apology away and instead held out the bracelet.

"What's this?" Marie asked, and stood up and let him lock the cuff around her wrist. It was very trusting, and Rodney didn't miss the symbolism of this gesture. Marie had an understandably bad reaction to anything even remotely smacking of imprisonment.

That she allowed this told Rodney that she put more trust in this place, in _himself_, than he realized. Rodney could have put anything on her, a tracking device, something that could shock or incapacitate or kill her. He could have even filled it with vials of Holy Water.

"Try to open the door now," Rodney said, gratified by her trust.

Marie tilted her head to one side, like a curious crow, then made her way over to the door and waved the bracelet over the panels. The door chirruped and whooshed open smoothly.

"Ah!" she said with a smile. "Universal key!"

* * *

After Marie had stopped by Carson's lab for what she hoped was the last of her borrowed meals (the carefully worded memo asking for volunteers had gone out that morning), Rodney swung into the mess to grab a breakfast sandwich and a huge thermos of coffee. Eating as they walked, they went to retrieve Marie's vials of potion from the lab to return to her, and fetched a botanist from the greenhouse. Marie had a plastic container with which to collect her potions ingredients, and Parrish had brought his pruning tools and sample bottles.

Rodney was annoyed at himself for being surprised that it was Sheppard who greeted them when they finally got to the jumper bay.

Rodney sputtered. "Oh, for--_you're_ our pilot? Hello, Military Commander of Atlantis, don't you have something better to do than ferry a _botany_ expedition to the Mainland?"

"I like plants," Sheppard said, glaring at Marie, "almost as much as I like keeping an eye on things."

Marie only rocked back on her heels and looked as innocent as possible in return for the jab. Rodney rolled his eyes. The ride over was silent and tense, and even Marie didn't try to lighten the mood. They listened to some Johnny Cash on a portable tape player – nobody had learned how to upload music to the Ancient equivalent of an MP3 archive in the Jumper's sound system – and said nothing.

Halling greeted them when they reached the Athosian settlement on the Mainland. When he found out what the group was looking for, he sent Jinto, an accomplished herb gatherer despite his youth, to assist them. Sheppard looked uncomfortable, but couldn't very well send away the boy without hurting his feelings. Especially since, aside from Rodney's spectacular pair of black eyes, there was no viable reason _not _to trust Marie.

Together the party set out into the woods; Rodney, preoccupied with his PDA, Parrish, enchanted by anything green that caught his eye, Marie, whistling a little as she walked, and Sheppard, stoic and tense. Jinto kept casting curious looks at Sheppard, following them grimly in full gear, tac vest, and a P90 drawn and ready.

Finally, Jinto turned to Marie and whispered, "Why is Colonel Sheppard dressed for battle out here on the Mainland?"

"Because he thinks I'm going to eat you," Marie replied, in a high-pitched growly monster voice. She curled up her fingers into claws and bared her blunt human teeth. Rodney could only see that the two eye teeth were still pointed, even if they were retracted, and wickedly sharp. But that was only because he was looking.

Everyone laughed. Except for Sheppard.

They reached the grove where the mistletoe derivative could be found. "It's a parasite, found at the tops of trees, just like its Milky Way cousin," Parrish said. Both Jinto and Marie began scaling trees, and throwing down bunches of the plant.

It was then that Sheppard got a call on his radio from Lorne, and was momentarily distracted with some administrative nonsense that Rodney thought he could have stayed behind and taken care of.

It happened so quickly, Rodney barely had time to process what he was seeing. There was a high cracking sound, an aborted yelp, and then a blur. He only registered after that the bough holding Jinto had cracked, and he had fallen to the ground with a sickening thud. Marie fell in a twin blur, hands out stretched, but she didn't get to the boy before he hit the ground. She was so close, though, that she was on him in a flash.

Sheppard was there in another flash, his gun pressing between Marie's eyes. "Let him go." And then Rodney couldn't make out what happened, but somehow, Sheppard was disarmed, his gun flying into the bushes, and Marie was holding Sheppard's arm by the wrist, pressing _his_ hand against a gaping wound on Jinto's thigh.

"Fine," Marie said through gritted teeth. "If you don't want _me_ to stop him from bleeding out, then _you_ can do it." Over her shoulder, she yelled, "Get help!" and Parrish scurried away like a frightened rabbit, back towards the settlement. Rodney radioed for an emergency med team and another jumper, and Sheppard and Marie continued their angry stare-down over Jinto's inert form.

"He's breathing," Sheppard said.

"And he has a pulse," Marie supplied. "And _yes_, I am a monster, and _yes_, I drink blood, and _yes _and I terribly underfed at the moment and struggling with my inner desires, and _yes_, our young friend here smells awfully good, but I am _not_ a wild animal." She grinned, showing teeth. "You'd save the day, despite being tempted by a turkey sandwich, wouldn't you, Colonel?"

A muscle twitched in Sheppard's jaw, and he gave her a bare nod. His shoulders relaxed, slightly. He turned his full attention to the wound, and Marie backed up, turning away.

_Well,_ Rodney thought. _It's a start._

Then he pretended not to notice when Marie slipped into the shadows, staring at her own bloody hand. He doubly did not notice that when she reemerged a few minutes later, her hand was totally clean, and there was a soft smudge of red in the corner of her mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Four**

_"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand." _

_"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me..." _

**

* * *

**

That evening, with Jinto safely swathed and stitched and bundled up in his father's house, the group of medics and harvesters returned to Atlantis with the bunches of not-mistletoe. Sheppard was silent and thoughtful as he piloted his jumper back to the city, eyebrows dawn down, but the dark scowl that had coloured that morning's flight missing from his mouth.

Rodney sat beside him in the front, using his time to rest his own eyes and aching head. The walking and the stress of the day was making his bruises throb. Behind them, the soft low sounds of Parrish and Marie conversing served to soothe him to sleep, and Rodney was surprised out of his light doze by Sheppard's quiet words.

"We're nearly to the city, Rodney," Sheppard said, and Rodney blinked a few times and sat up. He barely remembered in time to avoid scrubbing at his darkened lids. He winced as he peered out of the windshield, eyes narrowing, but couldn't help the small gasp at the awe he always felt when he had the privilege of viewing Atlantis from the air.

The city, _his _city, was beautiful. The sun was just setting over the spires, lending the usually silverish metal a golden sheen.

Sheppard mistook the gasp for an exhalation of pain, and he looked away from his piloting for a moment to regard Rodney's face.

"Still hurts?" he asked.

Rodney bit back the instinctive urge to snap out a snarky response. Sheppard was being serious.

"She didn't do it on purpose," he replied, answering instead Sheppard's unasked question.

Sheppard frowned and returned his eyes to the HUD, his voice dropping down so the passengers in the back couldn't hear. Rodney didn't feel like pointing out that Marie could hear their hearts beating in their chests, so of course she'd be able to decipher his whispering. "There's a lot that she's already done that she didn't mean to do. Her good intentions don't make her any less dangerous, Rodney."

"I know that," Rodney grunted. "But treating her like a monster isn't going to make this any easier for anyone. She's just here for thirty days. She has a lot to offer."

"Rodney…"

"The wraith are coming," Rodney snapped, voice a low hiss. "And there's nothing we can do about that, except get the Orion up and running and prepare every weapon and tactical trick that we can. If I were in your shoes, oh great and powerful military commander, I would be exploiting every means possible. And if somebody dropped into my lap with the ability to wave her wand and kill a dozen of the enemy, I would be asking her how she did it and helping the people who are trying to learn from her."

Sheppard bit his lip, and Rodney assumed it was because he was suitably abashed. But then he said, "She 'accidentally' broke your nose and concussed you. What if she 'accidentally' forgets to stop when she finally does get her… blood apple person?"

Rodney shrugged, because what could he say that Sheppard wouldn't twist around.

"How about innocent until proven guilty? Just _try _to be nice to her, okay?" Rodney asked. "For my sake at least, cause I'm the one she's going to bitch at when you say something mean, and honestly? I'm too damn busy to mediate your playground squabbling."

Sheppard looked like he wanted to reply to that, but then he shook his head and turned his attention to docking the Puddlejumper. Which they both knew was a bullshit excuse to avoid finishing a conversation, as the 'jumpers could damn well park themselves.

* * *

The debriefing was quick and only slightly tense. Marie was sitting up and smilinging genuinely and really doing her very best to dial down the mojo and be pleasant. Elizabeth seemed to have taken Marie's caution about not letting the Mary Sue's presence bend her out of shape to heart, and was struggling with her twin inclinations to be diplomatic and do what's best for Atlantis, and her irrational urge to be bitchy.

Sheppard stayed silent, which cut down on a lot of the talking time, and studied Marie carefully. Rodney wondered what he saw now – beautiful woman or threat? Sheppard only spoke up to tell about Jinto's fall, and then the narrative passed over to Carson. Parrish just gushed about the whole trip, lingering on the awesomeness of Marie's speed and climbing ability, eyes flashing with excitement, flicking over to Marie and then away, and back again and…

_Holy Shit._

Rodney felt every muscle along his back and neck go tight with realization. He had to consciously keep from scrunching his shoulders up around his ears. It was a ridiculous protective gesture; after all, it wasn't him that Marie was going to munch on.

Rodney risked a glance around the table, but nobody else seemed to have caught on. Rodney struggled to pay attention to the rest of the meeting. He plastered on a faux listening face, bland and hopefully unreadable, but he couldn't help the thoughts scrambling around in his head.

This was obviously what Marie and Parrish had been discussing in the back of the puddlejumper. Did Sheppard know? Had Parrish offered, or had Marie asked? Had they made any plans? Where would they do it? Why hadn't they told Rodney?

Rodney felt a surge of something strange in his gut, something like annoyance but stronger, a bit more bitter… he pushed the feeling away with a small frown.

Parrish cast Marie one more infatuated glance, and then the meeting was over. Sheppard stood and immediately left the room; Carson went to go whisper something to Marie, but she shook her head. Carson's eyes went a little wider, but otherwise he just patted her on the shoulder, threw a glance at Parrish, and walked out as well.

The rest of the room cleared, leaving Marie and Parrish and Rodney alone. Rodney cleared his throat, walked by them, and clapped Marie on the shoulder. "Well, kids," he said, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, "have fun. Be careful, wear a condom, yadda yadda."

A flag of red popped up across Parrish's nose and cheeks, and he looked down at his feet, embarrassed. Marie just grinned, flashing one sharp little corner tooth, and said "Perceptive little bugger, aren't you?"

Rodney found himself smiling back without meaning to. Disconcerted, he fell back on his arrogance; he clicked his fingers, pointed at his head and said, "Hello, Genius."

And he was.

So how was it that he couldn't figure out why the thought of Marie and Parrish alone together, cinched in an essentially intimate embrace, was making him feel… jealous?

* * *

A few hours later – around ten o'clock – Rodney, realized that he wasn't actually paying attention to the research reports that he was supposed to be reading, and correcting. Irritably, he shoved away from his desk and stormed out of his office. The Alpha Lab was closed down for the night, the lights off and the blue glow of computer screens muted. There were a few still on, running simulations overnight, but the rest were closed to conserve the generators. It was one of the first things that McKay had pounded into the heads of his subordinates: _it may be easier for you to leave your laptop on all night, but when we need the naquadah generators to support the shield, won't you feel an idiot for draining them with your laziness. Oh, no, you probably won't feel anything at all, because you'll be dead._

Pleased with his minions, and still annoyed with his own lack of focus, Rodney decided he'd stop into the mess for a cup of coffee – decaf, even he knew it was silly to have a cup of caffeine and still expect to sleep in an hour – and a snack before heading to bed.

He thought briefly about checking up on Marie, but she had the bracelet now so she could go wherever she was authorized, and Sheppard still had marines on her, so there was nowhere she could go without being seen, and nothing that she couldn't ask them to help her with.

For a brief second, Rodney's imagination flashed on the expressions that the marines guarding Marie's door must be wearing right now. Was Parrish a screamer? Was Marie? Would she snarl and spit like the vampires from the B movies, or was it all sensual and silent and soft little gasps? Would Marie blush? Would there be any sex at all, or was this arrangement purely clinical?

Angry with himself, Rodney slammed his fist into the wall. It make a satisfyingly loud thunk against the strange Altantian steel, but it just made his knuckles hurt more and did nothing for his temper. He was annoyed with himself because, frankly, this was bothering him and it _shouldn't_.

It wasn't like he was the hero of the piece, wasn't as if Marie or the Mary Sue ought to be paying attention to him, wasn't as if he _wanted_ her to pay attention to him. He was too old to be playing these stupid high school games of who likes who, of being jealous of a grown woman choosing to have sex with someone (or not) when he hadn't even been thinking about her that way before he'd seen the way Parrish was glancing at her.

Rodney had seen the memo for a Pomme du Sang, read it all, and had never once considered volunteering himself. In fact, he hadn't even had an internal debate about whether he should or not. He had just closed the email and continued on with his day.

So why was it bothering him now?

Rodney pondered this as he trotted towards the transporter, and hit upon an idea when the doors opened to let him in. It was because he was feeling responsible, that was it. He was supposed to be in charge of taking care of Marie, and she'd found a Pomme du Sang on her own. That was it. He was feeling annoyed with himself because he should have been helping her, should have followed up the memo with a discreet inquiry in his own labs.

That was it. That was _all_.

Pleased with this little revelation, Rodney exited the transporter and hummed some old Barenaked Ladies tune or other as he strolled towards his well deserved reward of a hot soothing cup of java and perhaps one of those little prepackaged donut thingies. His good mood lasted until he caught sight of Marie and Parrish sitting in a corner of the mess hall. Rodney had the irrational urge to turn on his heel and walk back out, but he bullied through it and went over to the carafe of decaf coffee and poured himself a cup.

He considered going over to them, to being a big boy and sucking it up. He glanced over his shoulder to see if he would be interrupting any canoodling, and was startled to see the concern cut into Marie's face.

For once she looked flushed and rosy, a healthy glow beating out the pallor of her usual tone. For the first time, Rodney was seeing Marie as she was meant to be; she had enough blood to be animate and healthy, finally having enough in her to do the last of the healing that she needed. Rodney tried not to think about how she got that way.

Parrish, on the other hand, looked pale and disturbed. He was speaking in rapid, soft tones to Marie, and she was nodding worriedly. Parrish's hands were sketching his agitation into the air.

Finally, she pushed a plate of cookies towards him, and it was then at Rodney noticed the half-drunk water bottle and the full glass of orange juice that sat beside Parrish's elbow. Standard fare after a blood donation, but normally donors were a little happier at their good deed than Parrish looked.

Rodney's feet turned towards the couple before he had made a conscious decision to meddle – well, Marie was his responsibility after all, it made sense that he should be there, helping out. As he got closer he noticed that there was a livid red hickey on Parrish's neck. If there were little fang punctures, the rawness and newness of the mark kept them well hidden.

Marie heard him approaching before he got close enough to hear what they were saying, and she looked up and offered him a flat smile. "Hi, Rodney," she said, and Parrish turned to look, wincing as it stretched the raw skin on his neck.

"Dr. McKay," he offered stiffly.

"Parrish," Rodney said. He set down his cup on the table, theatrically taking a seat on the far side of Marie, putting her between him and the orange juice. "Everything go okay?"

Parrish winced again and Marie sighed. "Everything up to the part where he came out of it and realized that I had just drunk his blood."

"I thought that was sort of the point."

"David gets squeamish."

_David_, Rodney thought with a mental snort.

"Pretty dumb to be hanging around a vampire, then, _David_," Rodney said, and couldn't help twisting the knife of their new familiarity. It was petty, and he reveled in it.

"It's just weird, okay?" Parrish snapped back. "It's not like… it's just not like anything else. I feel… cheap. Dirty. Like, a bad morning after. You know what, sir? It's none of your goddamn business." With that, he slapped his hands on the table and rose to his feet.

"At least eat the cookies and take the water with you," Marie said softly. Parrish flushed again, ashamed, grabbed the desert and water, and left.

"Dammit," Marie said with a sigh, sinking further into her chair. "This is why I prefer to do it without them knowing."

"Because some dork who knows exactly what he's signed up for gets squeamish?" Rodney said, having no sympathy for Parrish. "The blood drinking was sort of the point."

"Ever had a really bad one night stand, Rodney?" Marie asked gently. "The sex is the point, but it can be all… awful. And you feel sick with yourself and dirty, and wrong, and sad, and used… well, a bad bite can be like that. Parrish wasn't… thinking about it that way. He was just…" she ran a hand through her hair, making it fluff up around her neck, and puffed out a sigh. "He's just one of those humans who is far too grounded in humanity. When something Other comes along, they just can't deal with it."

Rodney mused on this for a few moments, sipping his coffee. "I don't have a problem with you," he said, puffing out his chest a little.

Marie looked up and smiled softly. "Well, that's because you're a genius," she said.

* * *

At 0700 hours Rodney woke with a start, sitting up suddenly in his bed. He'd had a dream. He didn't remember the dream but… he'd had one. Something about… no, it was gone, skittering away across the surface of his foggy brain like a water strider. He rubbed his hand over his neck, shoving down the phantom tingle of… no.

He thought "lights on" and was always amazed that the city knew when to dim them after he had fallen asleep. Clearing the journals he'd been reading off of the bed covers, he stumbled into the shower and then back out a few minutes later, cleaner but no less groggy. He looked at the mini coffee maker on his desk – the stuff in the pot was old, and he didn't feel like cleaning it out, so he threw on the closest, least ripe smelling shirt and BDU bottoms and headed for the mess.

When he got there, the line was small, thank goodness, so he only had to wait a couple of minutes to get at his precious coffee. It was nowhere as near as good as his private stash, but at least he didn't have to make it himself.

He grabbed a stack of toast and some eggs and turned to head back towards the lab when someone called out his name. He turned, and saw Sheppard at a table with the remains of his own breakfast. Surprisingly, Marie was there too, along with Ronon and Teyla, surrounded by the debris of their own meals.

Sheppard had put Ronon between Marie and him, and he was sitting back on his chair, eyes narrowed and cautious, but Rodney took it for a good sign that they were seated together at all. Bonding, and all that.

Rodney sighed, because all he wanted to do was get caffeinated and get to the lab for a few precious hours before they had the morning pre-mission debriefing. Today the team was accompanying Marie for a simple snatch-and-grab of some Pegasus flora, to be followed by an afternoon of analyzing Marie's displays of magic – with Kusanagi and Zelenka - and an attempt to seeing if anything could be scientifically reproduced for the upcoming fight against the Wraith invasion forces.

It was going to be a long day, so he might as well have some relaxation time. Sighing again, he gave in and joined them near the window.

"Good morning, starshine," said Sheppard as he sat down. His voice was smooth and laid back as usual, but Rodney wasn't fooled. He'd been Sheppard's friend and teammate for nearly two years now – he knew a tense Colonel when he saw one.

Rodney grumbled something incoherent in response, not wanting to admit that the really wans't awake enough yet to offer back his own snazzy reply, and took a giant gulp of his coffee. Ah, sweet caffeine.

"Not really a morning person, is he?" commented Marie in a kind voice. She had a travel mug in her hands. She was leaning back in her plastic chair as if it was the most comfortable sofa in the world, but her eyes were alert, either scanning the cafeteria – for Kavanaugh, Rodney realized, or another incident like the last – or watching Sheppard carefully without looking like she was.

Bookending the actually-relaxed Ronon, Marie and Sheppard resembled two alley cats about to get into a scrap over a bit of spraying territory. Which... actually, yeah.

Marie sipped at the mug, licking her lips.

Rodney would have thought that after Parrish, she wouldn't need another hit for at least another twenty four hours. Perhaps he'd been wrong about her feeding schedule – or how much blood it actually took to repair the severe damage that her stomach wound had caused. Her cheeks had lost some of that fresh-blood flush, and she was back to looking just this side of too pale to be human. He wondered if it was the relative live-ness of the blood, or the intimacy of taking it straight from a vein that had put the blush on her face last night.

Although, now that he thought about it, it didn't seem like Marie was really imbibing a _lot_ of blood each time and that's why she was losing her colour so quickly. Perhaps she was 'eating' more often because she was taking in less than normal.

Rodney's thoughts were brought back to the table when Ronon grunted: "Not really an anything person."

Rodney attempted to glare at him, but was too busy shoveling eggs into his mouth. When he had a sufficient amount stuffed away he said, pointing with his fork, "What's with the mug?"

"Stopped at the infirmary on the way here," she said. "Which reminds me, Rodney, I need to speak with you about something."

Rodney seemed to wait and when nothing was forthcoming said, "Well?" a bit of egg falling from his mouth. He stuck out his tongue to try to catch it and failed. Oh, well. It wasn't as if the rest of his team wasn't used to his little mealtime messes, and he certainly wasn't trying to impress Marie, of all people.

Marie shook her head and sighed, a flutter of something – frustration? – skittering through her expression. Sometimes, Rodney wished he was a better people person. All Marie said was: "Later, Rodney."

Rodney shrugged and started in at his toast. There was a moment of silence, punctuated by chewing and sipping from various mugs around the table, and it was just starting to verge on uncomfortable. Normally, this would be where Sheppard would say something he thought was witty or tell some ridiculous story about some hilarious thing that probably hadn't actually happened to him in his youth. But Sheppard was staying silent, jaw working under his skin so hard that Rodney nearly heard his molars shrieking in protest.

Luckily, Teyla was well versed in the art of diplomacy.

"Marie has been telling us of her adventures," said Teyla, trying to distract from the disaster that was Rodney's manners. She looked hopefully at Sheppard, whose frown increased incrementally, between his eyebrows. She bounced her gaze to Ronon.

"Yeah," added Ronon. "I'm impressed." He smiled at Marie and Marie returned it.

Rodney stopped eating, a piece of toast in his mouth and said, "What? What does that mean?" Little crumbs skittered across his tray.

"It doesn't have to mean anything, Rodney," said Sheppard. "Paranoid Freak," he added, somewhat fondly. It irritated Rodney, but Sheppard's shoulders fell half a centimeter, so Rodney decided it was best to take one for the team at this point.

Still, he had a reputation to maintain. "What, have you guys been talking about without me?" he blustered with false irritation, and put down his toast. "You know, I'm supposed to be keeping track of all the important stuff about Marie."

"It's not like that," Marie said with a wave of a surprisingly small hand. "Not military or anything, just… you know… folks."

Sheppard sighed. He shifted uncomfortably, and then admitted: "Marie was telling us about some of the people she's met. Some of it's kind of cool. Apparently, one of them was the god of war. That's why Ronon was impressed."

"Oh," said Rodney, looking a bit embarrassed. Then it evaporated. "You met a god? Really? I mean, they exist, in stories I guess, and in myths. Can you go into myths? Was he a mythical god?"

Marie nodded. "Of a sort. That's probably the best way to describe him. He was… Ares, actually." She sighed. "I hope to see him again, someday, if I ever get this confusion of a life of mine sorted out." She stared idly down at the table.

If Rodney didn't know any better, he'd say that she was getting all maudlin. He was torn between wanting to reach out and do something, you know, comforting – girls liked pats on the arm, right? – and just continuing with his breakfast and ignoring her emotional reaction.

In the best of situations, he was uncomfortable with weepy females, but this was Marie Freaking Brooke, and she was supposed to be all witty and badass and cool. Witty, badass cool chicks did not, in Rodney's personal experience, start sniffling at the breakfast table.

Marie seemed to catch herself. She swiped irritably at her eyes, and then checked the backs of her hands to make sure they came away dry – they did, except for a tiny smear of blood along one knuckle that didn't seem to alarm her, so Rodney put no further thought into it. Sheppard looked like he was about to puke, going instantly greenish in hue. He looked away and took a few deliberate breaths and Rodney was torn between teasing him for being squeamish and asking if he wanted someone to radio for Carson. Sheppard looked genuinely ill.

What, a little splotch of blood that…

That must have come from Marie's eye. Which meant that either she was suddenly ill, or… or that Marie cried blood.

Rodney felt the blood drain from his own face, his heartbeat jackhammer up into his throat, and his appetite suddenly flee. Jesus – is this what Marie had meant about sometimes people not being able to handle the Other when faced with it?

Teyla and Ronon didn't look the least bit perturbed, but that could be because they either didn't notice the blood tear or, more likely, they were so used to the Earthlings doing weird shit that they just took this in stride as well.

Rodney looked down at his coffee, no longer appealing, and forced himself to pick up the mug and take a big gulp.

Well, so Marie was dead and leaked blood and couldn't possibly exist, but was; so what? He'd dealt with learning about actual stable wormholes and gotten used to the idea of Roswell Grays actually existing enough to argue with them about theoretical mathematics. He can just damn well learn to deal with a walking corpse, too.

And Sheppard would get there. Eventually.

After a few seconds, Marie set her mug down on the table with a metallic _thock_ and said,

"All of which reminds me, I need a map of… of Atlantis, and one of Pegaus, and one of the Milkyway, too. For a… a location spell."

Nobody said anything to that, either, unsure if it would be impolite to ask _Who for?_

When the silence started to get uncomfortable, Teyla said, placing a hand on Marie's arm, "I am sure that you will… find what you seek. And then return to Ares."

Marie nodded. "I hope so."

Rodney was paying attention to the interaction between the two women, but didn't get it. "I don't understand," he said bluntly.

Marie looked up at him and said, "He was my lover, Rodney. And I miss him."

Rodney really hadn't expected that. He started to say something about how Marie seemed of have a lot of lovers, something about a sailor in every port, something about Parrish and hickeys, but then he coughed on the toast that had caught in his throat, and Ronon gave him a hard slap on the back. "Well, then, ah--" Rodney had never been good with stuff like this. Stuff that involved _people_.

"I should get some work done before the briefing." He stood up with his tray. "Come by later, if you want," he said to Marie, and then abruptly left the mess hall.

This whole 'talking about feelings' thing was so, so not_ his_ thing.


	5. Chapter 5

Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Five

By losyark

_"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince._

_"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me-- like that-- in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day..."_

* * *

At the pre-mission briefing, Rodney learned that Parrish had removed himself from the day's excursion.

It wasn't a big deal in terms of the objective; Teyla assured Elizabeth and Marie both that she could reliably identify the various flora that Marie was in need of, and that a botanist's presence wasn't necessary on the planet. Between her and Ronon, everyone was confident that the mission would be successful and mercifully brief.

No other civilians were added to the roster. Nobody actually said Jinto's name, but the insinuation that another similar accident might occur was so heavy in the air that even Rodney and his inability to read silent cues managed to pick it up.

As awkward as that made the meeting, Rodney was more concerned with trying to decipher Sheppard's shuttered expression. Mention of Parrish pulling off the project should have been as much of a surprise to Sheppard as it had been to Teyla and Ronon, who had both shown shock in their own stoic warrior way. Only Sheppard had looked grim and certain and not-shocked.

Had someone told him before…?

Oh, no, of course, the marines that followed Marie about would have reported back to Sheppard. Right, Rodney had nearly forgotten thinking about them and their reactions last night. So Sheppard would have known already that Parrish had been to Marie's rooms last night, and that he had departed her company unhappily sometime thereafter. He probably already knew that it had been Rodney, oddly enough considering his track record with emotional women, who had comforted her in the aftermath.

Probably had somebody scurry right back to him and report that his pet scientist was consorting with the enemy.

Goddamnit. Rodney didn't get it.

Marie was a Mary Sue. Sheppard was clearly the hero. Why wasn't he head over heels for her already? All the literature confirmed that this was supposed to happen, every article Rodney had read, every Mary Sue-bashing website he'd trolled, every transcript of Marie and Daniel's conversations, everything said that what Sheppard was doing was supposed to be impossible.

Rodney couldn't help but be fascinated by Marie Susan Brooke and the Mary Sue phenomenon, because here was something that proved that there were weapons out there that the SGC hadn't reverse engineered, that there was a new way of controlling the worlds around hi,. And offered him an intellectual puzzle that didn't involve life or death and dire consequences if he got his calculations wrong.

Rodney had found himself returning to the research a few times over the past five years, ever since he'd heard about the Mary Sue, because there was something compelling about Marie's story, something terrifying and fascinating, because here was a person who had all the power in the world and unlike the Gould and the Orici, didn't want to use it. Here was a person who had managed to cheat death, who could shape the universe around her, godlike, and wanted only to be human.

Rondey found the Mary Sue interesting simply because she was not like anything Rodney had ever thought that he, himself, would be. And that made her fascinating. And that made him want to spend time around her.

And she did really cool things, and these were things that maybe Rodney could figure out how to replicate, how to use, how to employ in the saving of his home planet. So Rodney couldn't figure out why it was, exactly, that Sheppard was so resistant to Marie.

It wasn't like she'd attacked anyone, or announced that she intended to rule the universe, or even be anything except entirely accommodating and pleasant. She had even come right out and offered her special abilities to aid in the protection of Atlantis, which ought to push all of Sheppard's hyper protective buttons, right?

So why? Why the cold stares and the distrust and the silent, roiling anger?

Was it because Sheppard was such a stubborn cuss? Was he psychologically resistant? Or was it just that he really distrusted people until he'd got their measure and Marie was a very hard person to read? Did he really hate the Vampire thing, or was it because she was taking up so much of the base's time and attention?

Rodney shifted his own attention to Marie, curious now, cataloguing in a quite scientific manner the way she was describing the process that she would need to put the plants through when they'd returned. But she was difficult to decipher this morning – unlike last night, when everything had played across her face, glittered in her eyes, Marie was shuttered and unreadable, and probably, Rodney realized, by choice.

Marie, unlike a living person, had very few involuntary tells. Her eyes glittered with life and expression when she was actively emoting or communicating, but unless she was engaged in enthusiastically mobilizing her muscles, her body took on the sort of eerie stillness that only the dead possessed. Her chest didn't rise and fall, her eyelids didn't twitch, she didn't swallow or clear her throat or tap her fingers.

Every motion she made held an air of deliberateness. Finishing with her explanation, she settled back into her chair and watched as Elizabeth wrapped up the mission briefing with the customary wishes for fair luck, and Rodney was struck with how studied and performative Marie's supposed casualness was.

She chewed absently on her bottom lip, but it was purposeful. Every motion, every little facial twitch broadcasted intent, told the world that there was nothing unusual to see here, perfectly alive, la la la. But the act wasn't life. It was a distillation of life.

Every once and a while, Marie blinked or drew breath and sometimes forgot to let it out again. She was, in essence, mimicking mobility and life by filling her body language with a thousand little useless habits that were meant to trick less observant people than the eminently scientific Rodney McKay into believing that she was exactly like him – alive.

But nothing sloshed through her system, no blood pumped through her veins, no air swept oxygen into her lungs, no endless cycle of food being taken in, broken down, sent out, no hair falling out or skin flaking off, no continual cell degradation. No millions of little deaths and little births inside her at all.

She was just there.

Occupying space and time and not of it.

A chill went up Rodney's spine and suddenly he thought he understood what Marie meant by Parrish being unable to psychologically deal with 'the Other' inhabiting his world.

There was something fundamentally wrong about her sitting there, so casually, in the chair opposite him.

Forget that she was some entity that was invading his own reality (which may be a work of fiction, a spin-off from a mid-budget science fiction television series), she was a parasite that fed off of the emotions, reactions, and blood of living beings. She couldn't be without humans, would have nothing to exist for and yet she persisted; she was a sucking force that was almost universally reviled and yet admired. She was the perfect hunter – beautiful in her own unique way, startling in her demeanor, and charming in her presence.

She was honey and the fly trap all at once.

And it was _wrong_, every never ending, every frazzled short hair on Rodney's neck screamed that she was wrong because she was fixed, she never changed, and she had usurped his place at the top of the food chain. The monkey hindbrain in him rebelled violently against the sudden, disgusting knowledge that he was no longer the most powerful and protect species in the universe.

It was different from the first nausea inducing realization that had accompanied his first paradigm shattering understanding of what the Wraith were and what they meant to him as a human because the Wraith at least were markedly not human in their appearance, culture, and manner.

But Marie.

Marie was not human and yet aped the condition so perfectly. It was…

Disturbing, in every full and thorough meaning of the word.

And yet.

_Yet_.

Marie was still pleasant, still a friend to Rodney when he wasn't sure that he had or deserved any, still a human being, or at least retained the etching of what was once human upon her soul. Marie, no matter what she was, still thought that she was Marie Susan Brooke, and acted and emoted and responded accordingly.

That was the biggest horror of all – that not even Marie seemed to realize that she was wrong. That Marie just thought that she was still Marie.

A hand on his shoulder startled Rodney back to awareness, and he was chagrinned to notice that the pre-briefing was over and everyone was in the process of leaving the room. He looked up at the hand on him and felt a surge of ridiculous relief to see that it was Sheppard's, and not Marie's.

"I know," Sheppard said softly, and Rodney was struck with how readable his face must be, if his horror had shown… what if Marie had seen, and been offended? "It's hard, I get it," Sheppard said. "I'm just glad to see that you understand where I'm coming from, now."

Rodney shrugged Sheppard's touch away, taking comfort in the phantom warmth leftover but feeling awkward all the same. He gathered up his papers and shook his head slightly to clear it.

"Yeah, okay, so it's really creepy," Rodney hissed back, feeling like he should defend Marie, even with the chill of his revelation still settled over his skin like greasy dust.

Because whatever she was now, she had once been and good and scared young woman who'd had something terrible happen to her. And that person deserved Rodney's loyalty.

"But the woman herself?" Rodney went on, "Marie is not a bad person, she is not evil, she does not want to hurt us. She just wants a life, Sheppard. She just wants warmth and friendship and, you know, all the camaraderie and crap that we take for granted. That was all torn away from her and it's not fair of us to punish her for being made what she is."

"Poetic," Sheppard snorted, eyebrows raised. "You make it sound like she didn't have a choice."

Disbelief and rage and a need to protect Marie's reputation surged through Rodney, stoppered up his throat and came out in an indistinct sound of derision. Had Sheppard not even read her file? He spared half a second to wonder if this feeling was his own or due to his continued proximity to a Mary Sue and then decided he didn't care. Marie didn't deserve this, not from Sheppard of all people, who knew what it meant to become something else entirely against your will, had felt his skin change under his own palms, felt his own instincts being reshaped by something beyond his control, felt his own personality become a palimpsest.

Rodney shoved Sheppard's shoulder, attempting to maneuver around him, to get out of his face before he bit it off, get some space before he regretted saying or doing anything else he might regret later. But Sheppard mistook it for a swing and blocked it quickly, crowding Rodney up against the conference table, an arm across his throat.

They glowered at each other, both panting heavily in their anger and with the tension of their restrained violence – shouts and punches were trembling beneath the surface of intent, held back only by their mutual respect and friendship, and cognizance of the bizarreness of the situation.

Finally, Rodney was calm enough to sink away slightly, and that was enough of a physical sign that Sheppard let him go and took a step back. They both ran their hands through their hair and smoothed down their shirts and looked at anything except each other.

"This is what I'm talking about," Sheppard said, gesturing broadly between them. "This is what she makes people do."

"She doesn't do it on purpose," Rodney defended, but even to him, his voice sounded tired, the protest already overused. "And she didn't choose it."

Sheppard's eyes snapped up, and there, finally, for the first time in days, was some other emotion beyond simmering anger. Shock coloured his irises, fanning his lashes wide, and the high colour of frustration drained off his cheeks.

"She didn't choose it," Rodney said again, feeling petty and the need to drive this home. "And if you ever read any of my emails, you'd know that. I don't just spend hours a day composing them for the joy of exacerbating by carpel tunnel, you know. This … what happened to her. It happened completely against her will. She didn't want to be a Mary Sue, or a Vampire. Any more than you wanted to turn into a bug. It was done to her. She's lost control of everything she was. There's a human being inside of this other thing, and she can't reconcile that, as much as she tries. So it's not fair for us to blame her for it."

Sheppard's hand stole up to the back of his neck, and his lips went tight, and he turned his shoulder to Rodney, looking away, lost, suddenly, in his own supreme discomfort and what were probably pretty horrific memories about being trapped in his own betraying flesh.

Rodney heaved a sigh. "I'll be down in the locker room."

He waited long enough to watch Sheppard nod distractedly, then headed towards the mess for one last shot of caffeine before he had to trudge what he was sure was going to be for hours across yet another alien landscape. He kinda wished he could get something harder than coffee.

* * *

Sheppard was silent all through his suit up, and Marie and Teyla filled the thick discomfort in the locker room by trading stories of children's antics. It was brought on by furtive discussion of Jinto's recovery, which lead to tales of Jinto and Wex and the other Athosian children. Marie, apparently, had had several younger cousins growing up, and had lots of stories to tell about chasing them around her grandparent's farm.

It was a strange disconnect, knowing what Marie was, and hearing about her past. Rodney had grown up with stories of Vampires that were hundreds of years old, had amassed great wealth, had legions of lovers; none had living relatives, much less little cousins that she used to play with in barns.

"Do you see them often?" Teyla asked as she offered a tac vest to Marie.

Marie laughed and shook her head and said, "Thanks, but I'm not certain it's worth wearing that. I sort of can't be killed by bullets."

"Arrows," Ronon grunted, and the scar on Rodney's ass burned in remembrance.

Marie stared at Ronon thoughtfully, then nodded and accepted the vest. As Teyla was helping her adjust the lacing up the ribs, Marie answered Teyla's repeated query about her family with a small sigh.

"Not really," she confessed. "I used to see them on the holidays, always was the cousin to babysit them on Canada day, you know, but ever since…" She shook her head, face gone quiet and slightly sad. "I'm afraid they'll see the difference." Teyla snapped the last clip into place and Rodney found that he had stopped tying his shoelaces and was staring at Marie in pity. It had never occurred to him that she might have lost so much more than just her own need to breathe or the ability to enter churches.

The somber silence was cut with Marie's flat, humorless laugh: "Besides, they're teenagers now. I'm not cool enough to hang out with."

Teyla said something comforting about family and loving each other no matter what, and then Rodney shoved aside the thoughts of his own sister long enough to finish gearing up himself. The five of them walked out into the main hall, and then after a flurry of 'good luck's and last minute double checks, the Stargate swirled to life and was casting blue shadows over the room.

Marie's face lit up with genuine elation, and she whispered, "I freaking love this show." She turned to offer Rodney a mischievous wink, and her utter, honest glee was so infectious that Rodney forgot, just for a second what she was and got caught up in her completely human joy.

She ran through the puddle like a happy child, her silvery laugh floating back behind her and echoing through the room even as she vanished into the wormhole.

* * *

The weather was hot on PX3-787. It was dry, itchy, parching. It was re-goddamn-diculous.

Rodney shaded his eyes and wondered belatedly if he should have offered Marie some of his 100 SPF sunscreen. Okay, so her breed of Vampire didn't immolate in the sunlight, but she was literally corpse-pale, and he assumed that even she must find the glare uncomfortable. But she wasn't scratching or even shading her eyes.

She was standing at the bottom of the bleached stone dais that the Stargate was mounted on, hands on her hips and feet apart in an attitude of excited exploration, like a demented Peter Pan.

At least in one respect, it rang with an eerie echo of truth… neither of them was ever going to grow up.

"An alien world, Rodney," she said, grinning at him over her shoulder, and something warm wormed through Rodney's middle, only to be doused immediately as he caught sight of her sharp little canines.

"Do you not often travel to other worlds?" Teyla asked, clearly amused by her utter enthusiasm.

"Realities, yes," Marie corrected, her grin stretching almost painfully wide. She flashed it indiscriminately at all of them as they moved to gather around Sheppard. "But planets? No, not so much. Earth is always Earth." She inhaled theatrically. "But here… the air tastes different."

For a moment, nobody was sure what to say to that. Sheppard's eyes went momentarily wide, and even Teyla looked surprised at the profundity of that small revelation.

Of course the air tasted different – it was a different planet, with a different mix of oxygen to carbon to whatever other minerals were floating in the gasses; there were different plants with different pollens; different foods drifting on the smoke of different cookfires made out of different trees.

Pegasus natives, people used to travelling through the Ring of the Ancestors, they all took for granted that each planet would smell and taste unique. The Expedition members like Rodney had been told to expect it, so he rarely thought about it anymore.

But it was all new and wondrous to Marie, who had only ever known Earth as a living person, and who now had senses so far advanced beyond what even Ronon knew, possibly beyond what the Wraith knew (and for a moment Rodney was struck by the echo of spine stiffening fear that had plagued him in the briefing earlier that morning, the brain-screaming panic that reminded him that Marie was not human, Marie was not alive, and that she had frightened a Wraith Queen, killed half a hive with her bared claws and teeth). And that was startling, that firmly pushed Marie back into the 'human' category in Rodney's mind, even if that version of human was a bit different than he was used to.

Well, what of it? Ronon was a bit different than he was used to, and so was Teyla. And so was Sheppard, with his freaky-deaky super gene, for that matter, so really, why should the fact that Marie didn't breathe any more, or bypassed the whole osmosis of nutrients into the bloodstream by simply drinking the nutrient-ized blood matter? That fact was, it didn't. Or shouldn't. Or, whatever.

So.

Picking flowers.

Yes.

Ronon was the first to set off across the brittle brown grass of the planet, heading for a wavering shadow in the distance that might have been a forest, once, but was now just a heat-line blurred collection of twigs.

Marie had both of her hands tucked behind her head and a huge grin on her face. She was squinting at the sun drenched sky, as if the light really was uncomfortable for her eyes, but didn't demand anyone's sunglasses from them. Rodney wondered if Sheppard had a spare pair of aviators and was withholding them just to reinforce that dickish need to maintain an illusion of control that he seemed to be so caught up in lately.

Either way, they were only halfway to the 'forest' and already had sweat dappling their foreheads and upper lips – even Marie, and that was slightly disturbing because, hello, blood – when Marie blurted:

"So, where exactly on this dried out husk are we supposed to be finding these ingredients? Because, they need to be fresh, not dried, and I'm not seeing anything that isn't sun scorched."

"This is odd," Teyla admitted. "The last time I paid a visit to the Mikroans, this whole area was a lush grassland."

Ronon grunted his assent. "The forest had vines and stuff," he added.

"Doesn't look like it's lush anymore," Sheppard pointed out, a little knot of concern colouring his statement. "Does this planet have a drought season?"

"Not that I am aware of," Teyla admitted.

"So what's the plan, then?" Marie asked, slowing to a stop. "Do we go back?"

"You won't get your potion ingredients if we do," Sheppard pointed out. "This is the only planet that dandelions grow on. What happens if you don't get them? Can you leave?"

Marie rolled her eyes, and even Rodney was too immune to this variation of the same old theme coming from Sheppard that he didn't bother to be annoyed by the bluntness of the Colonel's dislike.

"I could slide into another reality and brew the potion there," Marie allowed, "But then what about you guys and the Wraith? I can't leave behind any new tricks for you."

"There's no guarantee that those 'tricks' are even going to work once you depart," Sheppard said, turning to face her, back stiff and chin pulled in tight, as if he was afraid Marie was going to lunge at him, right there and then, and sink her teeth into flesh. "You're the only magical creature around – what if the magic doesn't work without you?"

"And what if it does? What if you had the ability to slide the entirety of Atlantis into another reality for a day until the Wraith think you've sunk the city or it was destroyed?" Marie countered, twirling on the ball of her boot to face him, too, gaze narrowed and mouth drawn down in an unhappy line. There was a tenseness around her eyes, a weariness in her posture that Rodney was surprised to notice; was it the sunlight beating down on her, or was the strain of trying to be pleasant around Sheppard finally taking its toll? "You'll never know if you send me off right away, will you?"

"Actually, making Atlantis look like it was sunk is a pretty good--" Rodney began, but Sheppard snapped at him.

"Shut up, Rodney, Jesus. Do you even know how you sound, fawning at her ideas, falling all over her to agree with everything she says, bending over backwards to make her – it – comfortable and cared for?" Sheppard pushed a frustrated hand through his hair, the other one balled into a white-knuckled fist, shaking on his hip. "Just shut the hell up."

Rodney clicked his mouth shut and glared, feelings wounded. "I am not fawning and falling all over myself. I am being a gracious host, and taking my responsibilities seriously, which, you'd think you'd be happy to notice. I know I'm not the best people person, and that I screw up sometimes, so do you think you could actually pat me on the back for not fucking this one up, yet?"

Sheppard made an indistinct frustrated sound low in his throat.

Teyla was surprised enough by this outburst for her eyebrows to rise, and even Ronon was watching warily to see who was going to take the first swing.

"Rodney," Marie said softly, reaching out to touch his arm. Then she stopped and curled her fingers back in against her palm.

"McKay," Sheppard tried again. "The conference room, remember… this isn't natural…"

"No," Rodney snarled. "This ends and it ends now; you snap the hell out of whatever funk you're in or I will transfer off your team for the duration of Marie's stay. I mean, Sheppard – this mission needs to be completed because I need… I need to keep Atlantis safe. Do you understand? I need to. And if it means that I have to believe in magic and brew potions and examine spells and accept Vampires as part of my world view, then that is what I will fucking well do."

"But she says we're not real," Sheppard protested, and his voice was nearly a whine, and holy shit finally they had gotten to the heart of the problem.

Sheppard couldn't cope with the idea that he was a fictional character, an anti hero in a spin off series produced by the SyFy network, of all channels.

Sheppard shifted, and his fingers flexed, and crap, he was actually actively trying not to reach for his gun. "How can you be just okay with that?"

Rodney blinked at him.

Marie cast her eyes down to the ground and bit her lip and under her sun-reddening skin Rondey thought he saw her flush more.

And Rodney didn't know what to say, because he truthfully hadn't thought about it, because he had done his best to not think about it, because he wasn't okay with it, in the end, not really.

Uncomfortable silence filled the already oppressively heavy air.

It was Teyla who cleared her throat first, and said, "But Marie is not real either."

Marie jerked her head up and stared at Teyla, violet eyes wide and mouth slightly parted, Behind wet pink lips, her teeth were very white and sharp. But her face was open with confusion, which swiftly flowed into understanding and then horrific discomfort.

"Marie is no more real to us than we are to her," Teyla went on. "She is the stuff of fairy tales and fan fiction. We are the stuff of science fiction and television. I do not see where the issue lies – we are all fictional constructs of some form or another, interacting. Did it not occur to you, John, that she may be just as uncomfortable with that concept as you?"

Sheppard shook his head morosely and stared at the dust under his boots.

"It is a bit weird," Marie allowed. "Being a Mary Sue. And knowing that I'm nothing more than a collection of stereotypes and clichés and tropes, that I behave a certain way because I have to, because that's the unwritten social contract, and not because it's… me. But… I don't feel that way. Like a construct, I mean. I am me. I'm three dimensional and … and in here…" she pointed at her head, and then at her chest, "I'm more."

"I'm 'more', too," Sheppard said softly.

"I never once said you weren't, Colonel," Marie said softly. Again, she raised her hand, to touch or comfort or guide, and then stopped part way to Sheppard's shoulder, curled in her fingers, and let her arm drop to her side.

"But we're a TV show."

"Think of it more like a window," Marie said. "Like the Quantum Mirror. Only, you know, with TiVo and cosplayers."

Rodney couldn't help the surprised snort. "People dress up like us?"

Marie grinned back and finally the tension broke, Sheppard's shoulders dropping down, his back finally bending a bit, his posture becoming slightly lazy.

"Is this a compliment?" Ronon asked.

"Huge," Sheppard said, and the smile that pulled his mouth wide was genuine. And of course Sheppard understood the deeper meaning behind the confession Marie had made, he had grown up an intensely intelligent Star Trek fan – conventions, cosplayers, probably fan fiction and essay books. They had a fanbase.

They were loved.

And that, of course, is when the little darts with the red fluffy tails slammed into everyone's necks and sent them crashing to the ground and into unconsciousness.

_Of course,_ thought Rodney on his way down.


	6. Chapter 6

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Six**

_The next day the little prince came back._

_"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you... One must observe the proper rites..." _

* * *

He woke in a darkish place that smelled vaguely of goats. Rodney was more annoyed with the idea that he knew what goat smelled like than that he was waking up from yet another drugged stupor. He wondered if a hand book had been passed around the planets when they'd first arrived in the Pegasus galaxy titled "How To Treat The Atlantians When They Arrive On Your Planet".

He was pretty sure that it would have been filled with anti-colonialist diatribe and treatises on maintaining one's native culture. All good things, Rodney felt, as the phantom-guilt-ridden son of a predominantly immigration nation, and a descendant of colonizers himself. But perhaps these particular people were being a bit too enthusiastic in following it, considering the Expedition was one of the best forces for defeating the Wraith once and for all this galaxy actually had.

Or would be, if they could ever remain conscious while off world.

Rodney risked opening his eyes, and was rewarded with the faint copper glow of a dessert sunset leaking through cracks in a wooden wall. His nose, still tender, and his eyes, still slightly blackish and swollen from Marie's fist in his face, twanged in agony as he squinted against the bright lance of light.

Under him, the ground was packed dirt, and the suspicion that they were in some sort of barn was confirmed by the shadow of actual goats – or at least, the Pegasus equivalent that was prevalent in almost every agrarian culture here – huddling up together in the corner. In Rodney's experience, these animals were rarely so still and silent, and for a moment Rodney wondered if they were dead or stuffed, until he followed the line of their bug-eyed sight.

Marie was perched on her toes on the ground, one wrist resting on a crooked knee, wrist and fingers dangling in a sort of unnatural and elegant drape, the fore and middle fingers of the other hand lightly splayed on the dirt floor to keep her balance. She was engaged in what appeared to be a staring match with the beasts. Their pupils and nostrils were dilated wide, sensing the predator within their formerly safe haven, and Marie was staring at them with naked hunger.

Rodney wondered how much time had passed, how long they had been unconscious, that Marie was hungry enough to be considering attacking the goats. He reached up and touched his neck carefully, disguising the motion by pushing himself up into a sitting position; no, there were no fang marks in his own throat. Though, Marie wasn't the sort to go supping on someone without their permission, or knowledge… at least, he hoped so.

She had mentioned to Carson during one of the first intensive medical testing junkets that she mostly slipped her teeth into someone during moments of passion, disguising it as a love bite – part of the reason was because in the right context, the bite did feel like a surge of orgasm, and partially because it was the only time when another human would let her get her mouth so close to their neck.

Thinking about it, Humans were damn paranoid bastards when it came to their own personal space, and creatures like Marie – perceived or otherwise – were probably a good reason that trait had developed as the species evolved.

Rodney turned his attention to Marie, frowning at his own unusually perceptive musing.

Her face, when he caught sight of it, was dusted with what looked like dried clods of earth. There were matching rivulets along the back of her neck and spatters down her shoulder and arm. The cloth of her shirt was torn. Rodney wondered for a second what the dust would be clinging to, until he caught the unmistakable tang of old blood in the air.

It seems like Marie had put up a bit of a fight.

Blinking in the semi darkness, Rodney caught the movements of Ronon and Teyla as they slowly began to regain consciousness as well; or, at least show that they were conscious. With those two, Rodney wouldn't be surprised if they'd be awake and observing this whole time and Rodney had just fumbled into wakefulness and broken their cover. Sheppard was still out, limp and sickening looking – his cheek held the budding bloom of a dark bruise. Rodney scuttled over to him across the dirt floor, feeling at his neck for a pulse – it was there, strong and normal. Sheppard had only been knocked out, thank goodness.

"Where are we?" Ronon asked, and Teyla answered, "A barn."

Rodney had no new intel to add, so he turned to Marie and asked, "You okay?"

Marie nodded slowly, never taking her eyes from the beasts.

"I think they're more scared of you than you are of them," Rodney said.

Marie blinked and swallowed once, and suddenly she was back in the room, her body animate and alive-acting again. "Sorry," she said. "I was… zoning, a bit. Listening to… the people outside mostly."

A surreptitious glance towards the humans told Rodney that she'd probably also been listening in on them, probably making sure they continued breathing.

"Hear anything useful?" Rodney asked, letting it slide.

Marie took a deep breath before answering. "Nothing much – complaints about the drought, mostly. They think they've come under attack from some malicious Ancestors, which is why they darted us; they think we've come back to finish the job."

Teyla composed herself on the rough floor and said, with much more calmness than Rodney himself was feeling: "Then we will simply have to inform them of their mistake."

Rodney scoffed. "Yeah, right, and when was the last time that actually worked out for us?"

Teyla shifted uncomfortably and said nothing.

"She could do it," Ronon grunted. "Use her Mary Sue whatever, dazzle them."

Marie sat back on her ass abruptly. Her face was just blank enough that Rodney couldn't tell if it had been on purpose or not. "Too many people in too high an emotional state to whammy all at once. Trust me, I tried." She pointed ruefully at her dirty face, and Rodney could well imagine what he injury must have looked like if it looked as bad as this _after _a few hours to heal up.

"Are you okay?" Rodney asked again.

"Nothing that hasn't fixed itself," Marie said, flapping a casual hand in the air. Her shoulders, however, were tight.

"You hunger," Teyla said.

Marie's stiff silence was affirmation enough. Rodney hadn't realized before just how much of Marie's functions were dictated by her diet – injured, she'd get hungry; tired or used her powers, she'd get hungry; enough time passed, and she'd get hungry, and it wasn't like she could just grab some cookies and eat on the go… It seemed that she needed to feed at least every twenty four hours, and that was just if nothing else had happened that put a strain on her system.

He suddenly understood why she had been worried about dipping into the transfuse-able blood from Carson's emergency stock.

"I can hold out," Marie said. "When the sun sets, I can get us out of here. I'll eat when we get back to Atlantis."

"Sunset will not be for many hours, yet," Teyla said softly.

Marie's posture, if possible, stiffened even more.

"The goats?" Ronon suggested.

Marie shook her head. "As if the villagers aren't paranoid enough… finding bite marks on their bleating beasts is not going to make them trust us."

"What about one of us?" Rodney suggested, blurting it quickly before he could change his mind. But the look on everyone's face made him wish he could take it back.

"No," Marie said, and there was sternness on Ronon and Teyla's faces that suggested they know exactly why Marie had said that.

Rodney felt stupid, with the looks they were giving him, but he had suggested it so he wasn't going to back down, now. "Why not? We're here. We're consenting adults. We know the consequences."

Marie sighed softly, the sound more tired than annoyed. "And when you're too tired and dizzy from blood loss and we need to run to the 'Gate?"

Rodney blinked. "Oh."

"Yeah," Marie said. She ran a hand through her hair, then pulled it out and stared at the palm, as if she was surprised that it came away clean. Clots of dirt showered onto the ground. "Huh," she said, and Rodney was struck again with the thought that whatever the villagers had done to Marie, it had to have been pretty rough.

"So we just wait, that's the plan?" Rodney asked.

"Until sunset, and or until Sheppard wakes up, or both," Marie said with a nod, dropping her hand to her thigh. "When the sun sets, I can make myself small enough to crawl through one of the cracks and slip the lock."

"You could just kick down a wall," Rodney pointed out.

"I could," Marie agreed. "But it would make a lot of noise. But waiting until nightfall is better, because of Sleeping Beauty over there. I can carry him and move faster than Ronon could, but not through this sunlight. It was already too harsh for me before – in this state, I might just blister up into one giant boil."

"I thought you were immune to that," Rodney said.

"It won't kill me, but I'm very sensitive. I prefer cloudy days to this," she gestured once at the cracks in the wooden walls that were letting in slats of sunlight. Rodney noticed that she had very carefully kept her out of their reach. "Even in the book, Dracula made a point of keeping the weather around him at…"

Marie trailed off, eyes widening with realization and wonder.

Rodney's mind leapt ahead to the conclusion she was chugging towards almost before she did.

"Have you ever…?" he asked.

She shook her head. "But it doesn't mean I _can't_."

Rodney felt his heart rush up into his throat. "How long would it take to--?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if this is a good idea." Marie sat up straighter, as if the idea of it had seized her and was yanking her up into action.

"They did blame the Ancestors. If you _could_, then maybe they'd--"

"Just let us go, I thought about that. It's worth a try."

"And your plants, they'd need water. For the spell?"

"Might start to grow if I do. Okay." Marie nodded firmly and got to her feet. She wobbled slightly, and Rodney tried to keep the concern off his face.

He wasn't even sure Marie was strong enough for this, right now, after everything else that had happened, after so much had already been taken out of her. But she planted her soles firmly on the packed dirt floor and closed her eyes and lifted her face to the air, as if waiting for a kiss from a spirit.

"What is she…?" Teyla asked, and Rodney was already taking a breath, already opening his mouth to answer when a cracking boom filled the small barn.

At first Rodney thought it was a clap of nearby thunder, and he was prepared to exclaim over how fast Marie managed to harness her untested power. Then he realized it wasn't thunder at all – it was the sound of the barn door slamming back.

Marie, who stood right where the full brunt of the exposed sunlight smashed into the room, turned her body away, hissing with pain, and huddled like the most melodramatic of her cinematic predecessors in the sharp shadows cast by a pile of hay.

The not-goats bleated in panic and stampeded away from her, huddling themselves in the far corner of the barn. A mountain of a man filled the doorway. He was easily the same height of Ronon, but built like a bear, with a thick neck and chest. He held what looked like a smithy hammer casually in his hand, with a sort of easy, dangerous familiarity.

There was the faint trace of rusting red around the flat of the hammer, and Rodney felt panic stab at his heart, because he suddenly realized why Marie had kept checking her skull.

Framed in the light behind the smith were several more men, clearly the biggest the village could find. Their features were disguised in the fall of light and shadow, but their posture was unmistakably menacing.

Teyla flowed to her feet, and Rodney was impressed with the smoothness of the motion, even though she, like the rest of them, must surely be feeling groggy and paper-mouthed from the effects of the drug.

"I am Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan," she said calmly. She held her hands out to the side; palm up, to show that they were empty. Ronon hadn't moved, but Rodney could sense a sort of repressed energy from him, movement just waiting to happen. Rodney himself trying to prepare to spring up without _looking _like he was preparing to spring up.

What he'd do if he did stand and things got ugly, he wasn't sure – go protect Sheppard, he guessed.

Taking the silence of the big man as a positive sign, Teyla took a firm step forward and added, "We came here on a mission of peace and--"

"We know why you are here, Wraith Worshipper," the bear snapped and Teyla's mouth shut with an audible and insulted click.

Ronon was on his feet in a second, a knife from his dreadlocks aimed at the throat of the bear. Teyla's hand on his chest stopped his forward momentum, but the murderous growl echoed through the barn.

"How dare you insult—!" Ronon began, and was too obviously offended to actually finish the sentence, bile piling up behind his larynx so fast that Rodney watched Ronon swallow.

Even Rodney felt his extreme horror deep in his gut.

_Wraith Worshippers?_ Them? It galled! Especially after everything Atlantis had lost in fighting the Wraith, everything that this particular team of people had given up, the friends that had been taken from them, the hope they'd seen crushed over and over again, the happiness and safety of everyone on Earth – 6 billion lives - that was at stake every time they ventured another foray against the Wraith.

Rodney was glad that Sheppard wasn't awake to hear what they'd just been called.

"We kill Wraith," Rodney spat, drawing himself upright and feeling the sneer curl his lip. "A lot more than you and your little hammer could."

The little hammer swung out and Rodney flinched back, all his bravado spent, before he realized that the bear was using it to point, not strike. And he was pointing at Marie.

"Then why does this Wraith-Born one still live?"

"Wraith what?" Rodney asked, taking the risk of rolling up onto his own feet. He stood cautiously, but the bear didn't seem to object, so he straightened all the way.

The hammer bobbed dangerously in the direction of Marie and her pained whimpering crested in another annoyed hiss, and then faded off.

"She is no Wraith," Teyla insisted, but the bear shook his head.

"Her eyes glow as a beasts' does, as the Wraith's do; her teeth are sharp as theirs. And she heals as quickly as they do, unnaturally as they do. She bit one of our men – she took sustenance in his blood as the Wraith take life. She is Wraith-Born."

"The Wraith-Born are just myths," Ronon said, fingers still white around the hilt of his knife, though his jaw and shoulders were deceptively loose.

"They are just stories told to children," Teyla agreed. "Offspring between humans and Wraith … it is not biologically possible."

Rodney felt surprise swing into his gut. Wraith-Born? Teyla and Ronon had said nothing about this myth when they had first been discussing the reality of Marie's changed nature. It couldn't be possible that they had missed the similarities between the Earth Vampire and Pegasus Wraith-Born boogey men.

But Ronon and Teyla hadn't shown any fear of Marie; perhaps because the rest of the Expedition had treated her more or less like an acceptable infringement on sane reality. All but Sheppard, of course. Maybe they took for granted that the Earthers accepted Marie, and didn't see that underneath it, they were just as shocked that this story time monster had emerged from the shadows and declared itself real as the Pegasus natives?

"And yet," the bear said gravely.

"We wish you no ill," Teyla tried again. "This one is… unwell. We have come to collect herbs for a medicine to cure her of her affliction." It was a half decent lie, and Teyla's diplomat's face held against the suspicion of the bear.

"As you can see, there are no more herbs to gather here," the bear growled. "The Ancestors have cursed us with drought and nothing grows. We are forced to trade all of what we have – precious metals, our tools, the very clothes from our backs – for food and water from other worlds." His dark eyes narrowed in the shadows cast by his bushy eyebrows. "But perhaps it wasn't the Ancestors at all."

"Surely you don't think we--!" Rodney began, but choked off the rest of the sentence when the bear took a step towards him, hammer swinging back around to point at his own chest.

"There have been no other strange visitors in months! What else could it be?"

"And why would we cause a drought?" Rodney snapped, arms out to his sides, waving in exasperation. "We came here for some plants that only grow on this planet. We _need _them. Why would we make it so they can't grow?"

"So you say," the bear replied. "And yet here you are, with an unnatural creature, and strange clothing and weapons, looking for plants when every trader in this sector knows our planet holds no life."

"We could help with that, you know," Rodney snarled back. "We have technology that could dig a well in minutes."

The bear wavered. "There is no such technology that is not _Wraith _technology," he said, pleased at his own circular logic, the triumph of his reasoning. "And that is not the sort of help we need."

"I could fix it," a voice croaked from the shadows, and Marie sat up slowly.

Her arms were still up over her face, and the moment she moved the revolting scent of cooking meat and singed hair wafted across the barn. The not-goats bleated in alarm and tried to crawl on top of one another to escape. One of the men by the door took pity on them, and opened a secondary hatch – they bolted gratefully. The hatch pounded closed quickly, in case one of the prisoners decided to use it.

"I could fix it," Marie said again, and her voice was like sandpaper. Her forearms and wrists were a mass of angry red welts, her palms singed almost black, covered with blisters and pustules that had cracked open. There was a reddish white pus discharge leaking from the wounds, and Rodney had to bite back a gag. "The weather patterns," she clarified and her teeth were gleaming white and elongated, unnaturally sharp behind her cracked lips.

"No man can do that," the bear said.

"Lucky I'm no man, then," Marie replied. She looked up at him out of bloodshot violet eyes. Blood, or tears, Rodney wasn't sure which, leaked from the corners of her eyes.

"And what would you want in return?" the bear demanded. "The souls of our children? The lives of a tenth of the population?"

"Nothing," Marie said softly. "Nothing at all. I want nothing from you except that you be happy and healthy once more. That is my only reward."

"And the plants you seek?" the bear reminded her.

"If they grow, then we will take a small cutting. If not…" she trailed off and shrugged, then winced at the pain the motion spread across her shoulders.

The whole of Rodney's skin seemed to throb in sympathy.

The bear thought hard about it, clearly seeking loopholes in the logic. Seeing none, Rodney supposed, he shrugged himself and then said, "Agreed; you bring the rain, and we'll release you and your… company. Do it now."

"Give me a moment," Marie croaked. "I must prepare."

The bear frowned at her, looking as if he was about to change his mind. Rodney held his breath. Finally, the bear nodded once, and motioned for the men behind him to crowd back out the door. They slammed it shut, and there was the thunk of a large beam thumping down against the door, presumably to hold it closed.

Teyla was the first to rush to Marie's side, and the vampire tried to wave her off, but didn't have the strength to do so. Marie stared at her hands and looked like she was trying as hard not to vomit at the sight of them as Rodney was.

"You can't do it," Rodney hissed under his breath, coming to kneel on the other side of Marie. Neither he nor Teyla knew quite what to do to help Marie, so they put their gentle hands on her shoulders and waited for Marie to make a move of her own.

"I have to try," Marie said. "I'd rather not leave here with corpses in our wake and another enemy made for Atlantis."

"That is noble and generous of you," Teyla said, "But you cannot injure yourself further."

Marie nodded. "I need to heal up first. I need my strength back."

"You need blood," Ronon grunted, and looked away. The goats were gone now, so their only other resort was… themselves.

Rodney began to roll up his sleeve. One hard glance from Marie made him stop mid motion.

"No," she said. "You still might need to run, later."

"Well it has to be _one _of us," Rodney said, throwing up his hands in disgust.

From the floor came Sheppard's tired sigh. "Me," he said.

Ronon was at his side in an instant, helping the still whoozy Sheppard up into a sitting position.

Marie snorted. "You hate me, Colonel."

Sheppard winced and rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Well," he said, and didn't add anything else, but the furious little distrustful line between his eyebrows had vanished. "Anyway, the point is you need blood to pull your little trick – and I think I know what trick you mean, and damn, that's actually kind of cool – and you can't take blood from these three because they're going to have to get us all out of here later. I won't be able to make it to the 'Gate myself," he said, casting an annoyed look at his ankle. "Sprained. Maybe busted. So someone's going to have to carry me, and if I have to get carried anyway, then you might as well use… drink…" he grimaced, "Well, it might as well be me."

"Colonel…" Marie said, and there was something extra in her voice, something almost tender and pitying and it made Rodney's guts twist up so tight, made him clench his jaw so hard for just a brief second, and then it was gone again and Rodney had no idea what had caused that reaction.

"Come on, then," Sheppard said, thrusting his chin up, even as he shrugged off Ronon's hands. He wobbled a bit when Ronon finally took a step away, but managed to keep himself upright. The skin around his eyes looked white and strained, and he had his teeth clenched together, as if he was about to allow himself to be tortured in an effort to save his friends.

This, Rodney reflected, was probably exactly how Sheppard felt about it.

Marie accepted Teyla's help to her feet. She was even more wobbly than Sheppard, and each of the few steps she took towards him – it was a rather cramped barn – looked like it was causing extreme agony. Somewhere between standing and when she plunked down directly beside Sheppard her eyes had begun to glow an intense and decidedly creepy gold.

Sheppard swallowed heavily and turned his head aside, exposing his neck.

A part of Rodney wanted to watch, but another part – a bigger part – felt that perhaps that what was about to happen was too personal for witnesses. Certainly Marie preferred to do it in private, and there was something about the resignation, the way that Sheppard held himself that screamed resignation and forced submission.

What Marie usually did with consenting partners, she was about to do with an unwilling victim, and Rodney could see the distaste as clear on her face as it was on Sheppard's.

Rape.

This is what this act amounted to, when it was between people who didn't want it.

Rodney swallowed hard, his eyes burning, and turned his back on them. He walked over to the pile of hay that Marie had been huddling behind and stood firmly on the other side of it, fists clenched and eyes closed against the irritated pricking that he told himself was just hay fever, _only hay fever, dammit_.

But closing his eyes didn't block out the sound.

"Are you sure?" Marie asked softly.

"I have to be," Sheppard said back. "What other choice is there?"

"We wait until sunset."

There was the rustle of cloth moving and Rodney imagined Sheppard's head shaking. Ronon said, softly, "I don't think they'll give us that long."

It was a sound prediction, and coming from Ronon, Rodney trusted it.

"We'll give you some privacy," Teyla said softly, and Rodney sensed their body heat suddenly near him. They both sat, probably still feeling the effects of the dart, and Rodney plopped himself down too, without opening his eyes back up.

"I don't like this," Marie whispered.

"Me neither," Sheppard agreed. "But you have to."

There was a long pause, and Rodney wondered if Marie was doing it, right now, but it seemed too quiet. There ought to be gasps or slurping sounds or something, right.

"How am I any different from the Wraith?" came Marie's anguished voice out of the darkness behind Rodney's eyes, and he started at the sound. He didn't expect her to talk. "We both hunt you. We both feed on you, drain you."

Sheppard sighed again, and this time it sounded tired. "Marie, you _are_ different." It was the first time Rodney had ever heard Sheppard use her first name.

"_How_?" Marie insisted "Because it _feels _good? If the side effect of Wraith feedings were also orgasms, would you have an issue?"

Another pregnant pause, and then Sheppard said, "Marie, you are different. You stop. And you _ask_. You were human once. Still are human. You're not a Wraith."

"No, but I'm damn close," Marie muttered.

Then there was another sound, the soft tap of flesh clasping flesh, a startled intake of breath, and then a thready sigh that trembled between pained and pleasantly surprised. Rodney couldn't tell who'd made that sound.

Rodney jammed the heels of his hands against his ears and started counting the decimals of Pi backwards from the thousandth digit.

Another moan bit through the silence, and then it was done, Marie was gentling Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon were gone from Rodney's sides, and they were speaking in soft, urgent tones. Rodney lowered his hands and opened his eyes slowly, and stood. For some irrational reason, eh didn't want to turn and look at Sheppard, and Marie, post … coital. Post _whatever_.

But he had to. Because they had to get the hell out of there.

When he finally turned, Marie and Teyla were talking insistently together, off to the side a bit, and Rodney could see the char marks on her skin reversing, crawling up her face and along her fingers as if it were ink being sopped up by a paper towel. It was eerie as hell, so he looked at Sheppard instead. He was sprawled on his back, panting slightly, loose limbed and flush, his head resting in Ronon's lap, eyes fluttering.

Rodney swallowed heavily, mouth suddenly dry.

And then Marie strode across the room and banged on the door, and the bear opened it slightly. Marie requested a broad brimmed hat, gloves, and a scarf. After a few minutes – in which Rodney spent a lot of time studying the structure of the barn and not looking at either Sheppard or Marie, fighting against the curl of… of _something _he couldn't name deep in his own belly – the bear returned with the requested items, and Marie donned them and strode out into the sunlight.

One of the men came into the barn and seized Rodney by the arm. Teyla was immediately by his side, hands out in a fighting stance, but Marie called into the barn "No, its okay – they just want him along for insurance."

Teyla's hands dropped, and then Rodney was being tugged out into the harsh light and even harsher heat. It must have been near the zenith of the day, because the shadows under the crowd – and it was a _crowd _that had gathered around the entrance of the barn – were just small little dots of shade. Rodney was pushed through the stinking, sweating swell of humanity, and along a dusty path to where Marie was standing, alone, on the edge of a field.

Someone tugged Rodney's arms behind him roughly, locking them together with rough metal manacles that were just a little too warm under the keen heat of the sun.

And then as one the assembled peoples took a collective step back and _watched_.

"Uh, Marie," Rodney said, when he realized that several of the men in the front row had bows and arrows aimed at both of them, though not one had the string drawn taught. Maybe they understood that this process might take time.

"Wish me luck, Rodney," Marie said softly, resuming her stance from in the barn" feet apart and planted, arms down, palm up, face turned towards the sky. Only this time her face was swathed in a thin, almost sheer scarf, and shaded with the brim of the hat.

"Good luck, Marie," Rodney said.

A trickle of sweat curled down his temple and prickled at the corner of his eye before making the rest of its way down beside his ear, slipping down his neck to pool at the collar of his tee-shirt. He tried to rub at the scratch salty trail it left behind as it dried, but the best he could do was rub his cheek on his shoulder. Annoying.

He squinted at Marie, trying to figure out if he would be able to see it, the moment when her powers kicked in and changed things.

And then a stiff, cool breeze slapped at the back of his sweat-soaked neck. He shivered, aggravated, until he realized that the wind had to herald the first of an oncoming storm.

Holy crap. Marie had done it. Around him, the people began to murmur.

The breeze turned sharper, cooler, and above them, a shadow started to skitter across the sky. It felt like seconds to Rodney, but the storm had to have built for hours before the first splatter of rain darkened the dry red soil just a few inches from the toe of Rodney's boot. Steel gray clouds made the sunset over the dustbowl fields bloody.

He repressed the urge to whoop with joy, and instead turned his sweaty, dirty, grimy face to the sky – noting absently that nearly everyone else around him was doing the same – and closed his eyes and reveled in the first fat drops of precipitation splatting onto his forehead and cheeks, sliding down into his hair.

And then he was soaking, the rain splashing out in a surprising torrent that was comfortably warm and refreshing.

Rodney laughed. "Marie, holy crap, you did it!"

Someone came forward and unlocked the manacles just as the last sliver of the sun slipped below the horizon, and Rodney surged forward to hug Marie, to revel in her triumph. But she was holding herself stiff, and every line of her back screamed her unhappiness. He stopped just beside her, and dropped his hands, suddenly uncertain. With weighted hands, she reached up and pushed off her floppy hat, stripping away the scarf.

Then she looked up at the sky, yellow eyes scanning the clouds, watching as lightning arced in a brilliant stream from one dark bank to another. Out in the distance, flowers and greenery appeared as if by magic on the dried sticks and stumps, as if the whole world had just been holding its breath before bursting outwards with life, life, _life_.

But Marie didn't seem to be feeling any of the exhilaration that Rodney and the villagers felt.

The rain striking her face didn't make her flinch. Marie stood staring at the sky, the water liming her skin in silver and moonlight, her hair black and heavily curled against her forehead, plastered stubbornly along the shallows of her neck and cheeks.

She was silent, mouth a thin pinched line, but her eyebrows and gaze open and wondrous. As if even she were surprised by the results of her powers.

Her eyes were yellow, a lioness in the darkness, a beast, glowing and feral, and yet, so full of … sadness.

She did not turn to look at him, didn't even appear to take in a breath for speaking, but said, all the same, "Sometimes I surprise myself." Her voice was low and rueful, her brash teasing and forced self confidence all spent.

"Oh?" Rodney asked, because he felt like he should say something, but couldn't think of any suitable words.

Marie sighed, and the sound was heavy and wet as her hair. She closed her eyes slowly, cutting off the glow, and plunging them into quicksilver darkness. "Sometimes I forget how not- human I really am."


	7. Chapter 7

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Seven**

By losyark and cat_latin

_So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near—_

_"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry." _

_"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you." _

_

* * *

_Marie, having never called up a storm before, seemed to have been, perhaps, just the slightest amount_ too_ enthusiastic in her efforts.

Teyla and Ronon were let out of the barn to watch, and Ronon had the still woozy and limping Sheppard clinging to him to stay upright. The crowd of villagers parted around them, enclosing in the same spindly semi circle as Rodney and Marie.

Rodney felt something in his middle relax, un-tense just a bit to have his teammates within eyeshot. They stood together in the rain, silent, enjoying the refreshing precipitation until they realized that the sudden storm was starting to turn the fields into troughs of impassable mud.

They glanced sideways at one another, then at the mud, and sighed collectively. Only Marie didn't move.

Teyla and Ronon were pretending very hard to not be watching her, but Rodney wasn't entirely oblivious to body language, especially after having spent so much time with them off world. They were very uncertain about Marie. Rodney couldn't even begin to wonder what Teyla and Ronon were thinking about the storm.

Did the Wraith-Born control the weather in their myths, too?

The rain was calming, and Sheppard closed his eyes and lolled his head against Ronon's shoulder, breathing slowly and deeply. Perhaps he was napping upright, but Rodney doubted it. Sheppard wasn't about to just doze off, not after everything that had happened, even if he was groggy from the dart, in pain, and probably whoozy from blood loss.

Teyla at least noticed Rodney's regard, and put away her 'thinky concerned' face for her 'harmless and sweet' persona. Rodney didn't fall for it any more, having been on the receiving end of both it and her sticks many times before, but the bear of a man with the hammer was sucked in so fast that Rodney swore he could hear a popping sound over the wet roll of the approaching thunder.

Teyla pushed her hair back from her forehead and smiled, turning to the bear and conversing with him in gestures and tones so low that the splashing of the rain covered. But they were both smiling.

And Marie… stood stiffly and watched the sky as if she feared it would fall apart and shatter around her feet at any second. Rodney took a few steps closer and reached out, fingers brushing the cool skin of Marie's forearm. She was the same temperature of the rain, and completely still, and it was eerie.

But she opened her fingers and lifted her palm, So Rodney slid his fingertips across her wrist and took the offered hand and stood staring at the sky with her. For a while, it was nice, but then the initial pattering of warm, rolling rain melted into the next phase of the rainstorm. It was cold and the wind started to blow sideways, Rodney winced as it lanced against his skin.

The storm grew quite intense, and it drove the awed villagers back into their solid homes.

One look at his teammates told Rodney that nobody was particularly keen on trying to get home to Atlantis when the rain was pouring down so hard, and with Sheppard's ankle the way it was… Luckily, the people of this world flipped as fast from hostile to hospitable as an angry dog changes once offered a good meal.

And Marie still needed her plants, which the bear promised them grew quickly after the seasonal rains ended – or used to, before this turn in the seasons that had burnt away life on this world.

So instead of slogging through knee-deep mud, they were offered huts until the torrent ended. They assumed that the storm would pass by morning.

Provided they weren't washed away first.

A contact team came through the gate about an hour into the rain storm, spoke to Sheppard over the radio to confirm that everyone was alive and well, and then hastily escaped before they were drowned in dirt.

The villagers weren't too perturbed by the excess water, or the loosening of the topsoil. Rodney got a little hysterical about mudslides, but the people assured them that the scorched remains of the woods would slow or stop anything that came down off the mountains.

All the same, Rodney insisted that they took huts on the far side of the mountains, with the village between them.

All in all, they were stuck in the deluge for nearly two days.

_Too enthusiastic_, Rodney thought, somewhere around hour forty. He was sitting in the hut that he shared with Marie and staring up at the steely sky through a small window set up high under a wide eave. It kept the water out but allowed air and light in – proof that these people had once had the lush, rainforest climate that Teyla and Ronon both remembered.

A soft tapping and muted pinging noises from the high woven rope pallet behind him said that Marie was still tapping away at his computer – either writing something or playing FreeCell, he wasn't sure. He sighed and tried not to be frustrated.

"Anything green out there yet?" Marie asked, and from the distracted tone of her voice, Rodney knew it wasn't so much out of curiosity that she asked, but boredom.

"Just brown," he said. "And grey."

"Sorry," Marie said again, for the umpteen millionth time.

Rodney stood and looked over at her – she was concentrating on the screen of the tablet, perhaps genuinely, but at this point Rodney was getting to antsy to care. He had written everything he could on it already; done the mission report, even worked a bit on one of the papers he had stored in the memory and brought on missions for just such occasions. But even that had gotten tired after a while.

And being around Marie was making him… uhg, not antsy, not uncomfortable, just… sort of raw feeling inside. Because this was Marie, this was a woman he knew he wanted to trust, but who had proved to him time and time again that she was unnatural, untrustworthy, and imperfect. She was so desperately human in all of her worries and fears and habits and then, suddenly, she was _not_.

And yet he couldn't help but want o get her attention, to engage her in conversation, to listen, to… to touch… to…

He raised a hand and scrubbed at his neck, annoyed with himself, and his inability to name this goddamn feeling that kept plaguing him, circling his head and buzzing at his ears like some sort of particularly pushy mosquito.

Rodney let his eyes travel the interior of the hut – it was dark, save for the single cauldron of low burning logs in the centre. It was meant to dry out the air and keep the hut warm at night, but they had chosen to keep it going because it alleviated some of the forced shadows that the clouds cast.

Some of their clothing was hanging beside it on flimsy, dried out poles of something close to bamboo.

"This is ridiculous." Rodney stood and fetched his over shirt from the pole. "I'm going to go check on Sheppard and Ronon, see how far Teyla's gotten with the negotiations. Maybe get some food. Want anything?"

Marie looked up from the screen, and the blue light it cast along the underside of her chin and cheeks was eerie. She raised a sardonic eyebrow at him.

"Right," Rodney said with a dismissive hand wave. "Be back when I'm back."

Marie offered a toothy grin. "Stay dry."

"Har har," Rodney offered, and huddled against his upturned collar and dashed for the hut next door.

Sheppard was asleep and Ronon was carving something, so Rodney sat in their silent presence by the fire and partook of the strange little berry-nuts that someone had dropped off as an apology and pontificated on the uses and curses of being able to manipulate the weather, all the while not thinking of…

…well, no, because of course he was thinking about it. Because it was him, and if he couldn't multitask, then who could, really?

And it scared him a little, because Rodney was staring at Sheppard's raw neck, at the sort of disgusting hickey that Marie had left, and was ever so secretly, sort of, maybe, _wanting _it.

It wasn't like Rodney had a lot in the way of interpersonal relationships – Sheppard was his buddy, Zelenka just a step above useless minion, Ronon and Teyla in that strange pseudo awkward place between meaning as much to him as Jeannie, but not more than Sheppard. And he could admit it to himself: even when they were doing and saying nothing, he every so secretly valued the time he spent with Marie. He _liked _that she relied on him, that she _needed _him, that she trusted him to do what was right by her in the city.

He liked that _he _was the one she chose to spend her free time with, that he was the one she had recognized right away when she had arrived in Atlantis, that she had _known_ him, the way that he had known her.

He liked that she sat with him and at dinner every night, and that instead of going back to the labs, she made him sneak off to an abandoned lab and performed magic spells and for him to test.

Rodney liked (not _likes _likes, he reminded himself firmly, just _friend_ liked) Marie because she's able to trade him quip for quip, she's not insulted even though he keeps calling her magic voodoo, and she appreciates his intellect and sense of humour.

And maybe, unlike some of his staff, maybe Marie even actually respected Rodney which… yeah. Kind of meant a lot to Rodney, even though he would never admit as much to, well, anyone, ever, and barely even to himself, now.

Rodney got up.

"Goin'?" Ronon asked, part statement, part inquiry.

"Back over, then maybe into the village. Need anything?"

Ronon scratched the side of his neck with the tip of the knife he was using to carve with.

"Nope."

"Okay," Rodney said, and went back over to the hut he shared with Marie. She was still on the bed, so he walked over, sopping, leaving shoe-shaped puddles to absorb quickly into the dusty packed dirt floor of the hut.

He pulled the computer out of her hand and set it on the bed and she let him. Then he reached out, tentative suddenly, and touched the side of her bent knee.

"I think," he said softly, "I may be in love with you, a little."

Marie sighed and touched his hand gently. "Don't."

"Don't?"

"Be in love with me. I'm a bad person to be in love with, Rodney."

"Is it the Mary Sue thing?" he asked, and he was trembling, suddenly, because he didn't _understand _how this could happen, how it could have blindsided him so hard. "Or is it you? I can't tell. That … that's frankly terrifying."

"I know," Marie said. She sat away from the wall, leaned in closer. She didn't smell like anything except rain, so Rodney didn't understand why he couldn't keep himself from swaying a fraction closer towards her. "Believe me, I get that. But this isn't… you, Rodney."

"Why not?" he asked. "Why can't it be? Why I can't I really feel like this? You like me, you don't tease me. Why can't I have that? Why aren't I good enough to have that? Because I'm a fictional character? Because I'm the comic relief sidekick to Sheppard's gloriously emo anti hero?"

Marie sighed again. "Don't overthink it."

"Hello!" Rodney said, snapping his fingers in front of her face, stepping away because he was so _angry _suddenly, angry enough to want to hit something, at least. "Have you _met _me? Doctor Rodney McKay? Genius? Galaxy class overthinker?"

"Rodney," Marie said, and reached up and cupped his cheeks between her hands.

He went suddenly still, instinctual, and for a brief second he felt like a rabbit caught instantly in the glare of a serpent. And then something warm and fantastic rushed into his core and he wanted to kiss her, goddamnit.

"Don't," she said, but when he leaned forward, she didn't hold him away. She could have, she was strong enough. He pressed his lips against hers, soft, almost chaste, and so brief. She was cold. Her breath tasted of nothing.

"What if I don't care?" he said.

"I'm leaving," Marie reminded him. "I'm not staying. I can't. What will happen when I go?"

"I don't care," Rodney said again. "Can't I just have this now?"

Now Marie did push him away.

"Eat," she said.

At first, Rodney didn't understand. But then he felt his eyes go round and the blood creep up his neck. "Oh. Okay."

"And lots of water," Marie cautioned, as he turned back to the door of the hut.

"Right, I'll just stand outside with my mouth open," he said with far more bravado than he felt. His stomach twisted tight and he was pretty sure that he wouldn't actually be able to force any food into it, but he had to. He _had _to.

When Rodney returned an hour later, Marie looked…not so well, actually, even paler than usual, with a tremor in her long, tapering fingers as she typed away at the keyboard.

"Uh," Rodney said, pausing by the door. "Sheppard's awake again. He's got the headache from hell, but otherwise he's okay. Teyla said she'd look at him again in the morning. Um, if that's what you're worried about."

Marie smiled weakly and pushed away the computer. "Yes, that's good to hear," she said. "I think it's time I went out for a bit."

"Out?" Rodney repeated, coming all the way inside. He had eaten with a family, and they had sent him back with a skin of some of their potent wine. He'd asked for two cups. Marie said she _could _drink normal things if she wanted, and he wanted to make sure that he wasn't being rude.

"To hunt," Marie said, as if that was explanation enough. When Rodney remained silent, she added, "Even in all this rain, I think it's safer for me to … go elsewhere. For my… yeah. You know, because of the," she confessed, gesturing vaguely at the vicinity of her eyes. They were unusually vivid in the strange reflection of the sunlight through the thick, dark clouds. "And I'm getting hungry." She looked him up and down.

Rodney squirmed, feeling his dick start to tighten against the seam of his boxers.

"_Too _hungry," she clarified. "It might be safer. Especially if you don't want me to…"

"Oh," Rodney said. He looked down at the wine. He was being a bad host. "I could see if they have some fresh game out there," Rodney offered. "Or…" Rodney felt his face heat up.

And _oh_, there it was, the light bulb moment. Suddenly he knew what he resented Parrish's negative reaction to Marie's attentions, why he was watching Marie's eating schedule so closely, even why he wanted to spend time with her past their various appointments.

He told Marie how he felt and she thought that he meant… just… and that he wouldn't want to. But no, he knew, he understood that being with her entailed… but it wasn't until now that he had realized that he actually did _want that_, that he wasted to _try _it, at least once.

Rodney sort of had a _thing. _Maybe not a crush, maybe not love, but definitely something. Some attraction, some… fascination, at least. Curiosity.

Scientific.

Yes.

If he was going to ask, if he was finally going to say it, then there was no better opportunity than now. "So, why aren't I your pomme?" he blurted.

And Marie blinked. "Gbah? You _want _to? Mr. I have hypoglacemia, and I don't like pain, and I'm too important right now?"

He considered the wine skin, then lifted it to his mouth and took a long pull off of the neck. It tasted like antifreeze, which was quite a considerable feat, having come from a planet without cars, but when he corked it and dropped it to the floor half empty, he felt the smug satisfaction of catching Marie staring at his Adam's Apple, at the thin bead of red wine that had escaped the corner of his mouth and was trailing it's obscene little way towards the hollow of his throat.

The world swirled once and he felt the heat staining his cheeks and he said, "Yeah, I do."

Marie wrenched her eyes back up to his. "You never said anything."

He snorted. "You're so dense." He was well aware of the irony of the statement, but decided that he was about to be both too drunk and too full of terrified bravado to point it out.

She rolls her eyes at him. "You're a bad flirt."

Rodney smiled. "I thought I was your friend."

"You are. But that doesn't mean I randomly chomp on my friends," Marie pointed out, twisting her fingers around one another. "Do you want me to? Chomp on you, I mean."

Rodney swallowed and took a step towards her, where she was leaning back against the wall, feet dangling off of the side of her pallet. He cleared his throat and said, "...yeah."

Marie smiled. "Oh, good. I was hoping you would, sometime."

Rodney got to the side of the bed and reached out slowly, cupping her shoulders in his palms. He was still wet, dripping from the rain, but Marie didn't seem to notice. "You were?"

She let him pull her upright, opened her thighs so he could settle his legs between them and said, "I wanna see if snarktastic tastes different."

"Har har," he said, forcing a smile. But he could feel his hands shaking, and his throat getting dry and his stomach twisting all up into strange knots-within-knots. Because suddenly he could see them, the wicked little points that decorated the corner of her mouth.

And _oh_, another one of those light bulb moments. He shouldn't have been surprised, but he really kind of was.

"Oh," he said, aloud this time. "It's _me_, isn't it?"

Marie's beautiful face scrunched up in a frown of incomprehension.

"All this while, I was thinking it would be _Sheppard_! Am _I_ the leading man?"

Marie thought about this. "In all honesty, I'm more familiar with SG-1, but I seem to remember you're at least _one_ of them."

"Wow. Then it should be me, right? Your blood apple?" He ran his thumbs up the side of her bare neck, watching as she shivered when the rough pad of one thumb skipped over the puffed flesh of her scar. "What the hell does Sheppard know; _I_ could catalog and memorize every sensation. I'd even let Carson run before and after scans, oh, and I am just saying _really_ wrong things right now, aren't I?"

Marie looked down at the floor. "Yeah. Kind of." Now Marie looked both hungry and sad.

"Oh god, I'm sorry."

He broke away, found the cups and the half-finished wineskin. He poured out two cups of the wine, and then sat next to her on the bed. "I'm really bad at this."

Marie snorted, but took the wine he offered. She smelled it but didn't drink.

"Hey. Making a confession, here. It wouldn't…" Rodney touched her hand lightly. "It wouldn't just be in the interest of science." He stood, and met her clear violet gaze and swallowed. "Actually, it would _barely_ be in the interest of science."

"Are you _sure?_" Marie looked up at him and smiled, her violet gaze was taking on some fire. Suddenly, he could feel the heat of her hunger, from his throat down to his groin.

"Oh, I am_ positive!"_

She took the wine out of his own fingers, fingers that suddenly felt thick and clumsy, and set both cups on the dirt packed floor beside the bed.

She pulled him down to lie atop her on the pallet, but somehow he ended up straddling her thighs, and the way her hands, small but certain, came up to cup his ass, made him feel more vulnerable than the silk of her lips grazing his bare throat.

Then teeth, penetrating, making him shake all over. His cock throbbed to the root, and she moaned, fuck, like she could hear it, sense it, the thumping blood of him making her crazy.

It was… faster than he expect. No foreplay, but then Marie was really hungry he supposed and …. Oh, wow, did _that feel good_, and then….

Then Rodney was on his back somehow, Marie's mouth busy at his throat. And he was sort of cataloging every sensation, because it's _him_, and he was so hard it hurt, and his hands tightened on her hips so he could push his erection up against her. She arched and moved sideways, and Rodney immediately let go.

"Sorry, sorry," he gasped, trying to shift away. No, of course – she just wanted dinner, who was he to try to push for anything more?

Marie lifted from her drink long enough to deliberately put her thigh between his knees and say, "Go ahead."

"Thank _fuck_," Rodney whispered and ran his palms over her shoulders, down her sides to cup her ass again. Marie reached between them and thoughtfully freed him from his pants. The tips of her fingers – _cold, shit!_ – danced over the head of his cock, and then they were back on the side of his face, his shoulders, his neck, twining in his hair as she lowered red, red lips to his neck again.

He got his hands up under her shirt, pushing it up just far enough that his cock was sliding with delicious dry friction against her bare skin. He moaned and grasped her, pushing up against her body as she drank, until he came, and came, and came.

Rodney sucked in a huge lungful of air, then another. He looked around at the room, the laptop, Marie's tumbled red hair across part of his vision, and felt like he was waking from a dream. It was the first moment since Marie appeared in his reality that felt, well, _real_.

She remained on top of him, shivering with energy, lapping at his throat. He touched her, come cooling on his own shirt, spreading his hands across her beautiful ass, lifting his hips a little off the rope hammock, to let her press and angle…

Her eyes didn't flash. She didn't coo like a blissed-out turtledove. She shuddered hard, from head to toe, and her chest and throat let out something low and broken when she came. Rodney just held on.

Finally, Marie shifted, and lifted herself up and off Rodney, giving his flank a little pat as she went. They were both still fully clothed.

"I love my people," Marie said, catching a drop of his blood as it snuck out of the side of her mouth. She licked it off the tip of one finger. "Canadians are always so polite, so _thorough_."


	8. Chapter 8

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Chapter Eight**

_"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince. _

_"Yes, that is so," said the fox. _

_"Then it has done you no good at all!" _

_"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: _

_"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret." _

**

* * *

**They returned to Atlantis two days later. Sheppard's ankle had healed up enough for him to walk under his own power, and the excesses of mud had been sucked up in the roots of a sudden vicious spurt of plant growth. The planet, once dry and dusty red, then a muddy brown, was now becoming a lush carpet of green.

"Will it stay like this?" Ronon asked as Marie bent by the road to pick some little white flowers.

Rodney wondered if she needed them for her potion, too, but then she straightened and smiled at Ronon, squinting against the bright afternoon sunlight, nose pinking up already, and wove the stem of one of the flowers into the hair above her ear.

"I don't know," Marie admitted. "Maybe? I can't assume that one good rainstorm will kickstart a whole ecosystem, but it could be a tipping point."

"The headman and I talked of their people relocating," Teyla said. "But only if the dry season becomes too much to bear again. Perhaps to the Athosian settlement." Teyla smiled softly, and blushed prettily. Rodney was surprised to see it.

"Oooh, you'd like that," Marie said with a wink, and Rodney had a feeling he was missing something. Something to do with women and intuition and things that he had never quite understood. And he wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to be getting it, if it involved Teyla and that bear with the hammer.

Teyla ducked her head and kept walking, speeding up to walk beside Sheppard, who had trudged on when the rest had paused, eyes set firmly on the Stargate in the distance.

Marie laughed at Teyla's reaction and tossed a knowing wink at Rodney. He felt his own cheeks flush and just stopped himself in time to avoid scratching the hickey on his neck, again, and reopening the little match set of pinprick scabs there, again. Two nights running Marie had not gone hunting to gain her sustenance, and two nights running Rodney had been granted a spectacular orgasm in return for his donation. A way better deal than the Carson ever offered when he had to do the monthly obligatory donation for the Atlantis personnel. All he got was juice and cookies in the infirmary. Last night Rodney had actually managed to get his pants off first.

It was still sort of strange to try to reconcile the dour, hurting, PTSD Marie with this laughing, smiling creature with flowers in her hair and the sunlight on her face. And that same person again with the angry, quiet animated corpse. Marie was so many things, so many faces and facets, and Rodney was just starting to get to know each of them, to learn about the person under the glamour, the soul behind the scientific experimentation.

The woman trapped forever in the girl's body, underneath the Vampire.

She was silly, for one thing, as evidenced by her reaching up to stick the still wet stems of a few of the flowers into Ronon's hair. She told terrible jokes. She liked to cuddle, because it made her feel warm, and the continual patter of a heart against her own chest made her feel alive again.

She was smart, too – not genius level, like him, but she had a university degree (even if it was only in Dramatic Literature), and no illusions about who and what she was, and what that meant to everyone, and everything, around her. She had more street sense than Rodney.

She wondered at the magic she created herself, staring at her wand alternately like the most amazing thing in the whole of creation, or like it was a poisonous snake that was about to bite her hand off. Her every thought flitted through her eyes, but the language they were written in was unintelligible.

Rodney couldn't help but wonder what might have happened to Marie had she not been sucked into the life of a Mary Sue. Would she have found a boyfriend, settled down, gotten a job at some office with her BA in Literature and popped out some kids? Rodney rubbed his arms – the life he was envisioning for her was just a plain life, such a boring, unimportant little life, and Marie was so big, larger than reality, outside of it. He couldn't imagine her being content with that; but then, what made her special was the very thing that was keeping her from the normalcy that seemed to be the fate of most people.

Who was Marie Brooke under the Mary Sue? Would she have grabbed at life and happiness so desperately? Would that Marie have tumbled for two days straight with a slightly tubby astrophysicist just because it felt good, because it made them both feel _alive, _just because they wanted to?

Probably not.

And the thought of a Marie, plain and bored, watching TV on weekends and going for drinks with girlfriends on Thursday nights after Sex and The City was not a pleasant one. Instead, Rodney focused on the way that she and Ronon were playfully chasing each other through the flowering brush, laughing, the way she turned to whisper something naughty in Teyla's ear, making the other woman turn scarlet, the way she respected Sheppard's space and still lingering discomfort but still included him in her game of chase, the way that she looked up at Rodney as she zipped by, suggestions smoldering in her gaze for a half a second as their eyes met.

Unfettered, if only for a moment, but the pressing sadness that seemed to dog her every action.

No, this was the Marie Rodney would much rather see.

No heart beat, but so very alive.

* * *

The debriefing was blessedly short. There were only so many ways to explain exactly how they passed four mind-numbingly boring days hiding in huts from a supernaturally occurring typhoon.

After the obligatory post-missions physical, at which Carson tutted at Sheppard for walking on his ankle so soon, everyone parted ways to shower, change into clothes that didn't smell of dirt and unwashed skin, and to spend some serious time alone. Marie was trailed to her room by just one marine instead of two, which Rodney figured was an improvement on Sheppard's part. She went whistling, spinning her Atlantis-activating bracelet

Rodney loved his team, but a few hours alone with a hot bath in his tub, bubbles overflowing the rim, and a good old fashioned physics journal sounded just about right.

He brought a huge cup of coffee into the bath with him and sipped it slowly, savoring the caffeine that was seeping its way back into his system after four days without. He got out of the bath to refill it four times, and remained in the water until it became too cool to be comfortable.

Dressed, rejuvenated, and happy, Rodney decided to pop into the lab, just to see what had transpired in his absence. He wasn't scheduled to return to work until the next day, but he was curious. He dressed in some jeans that were at the bottom of his laundry pile – practically clean again, by virtue of the time that had passed – and a teeshirt, clear indicators to those minions who wanted to pester him that he wasn't Doctor McKay today, just Rodney.

He glanced in the mirror to make sure his hair wasn't drying funny, and caught a glimpse of the fading red mark against the base of his collarbone. Oh, no, no, he couldn't go out into the halls like that! For a brief second he contemplated a scarf, or a turtle neck, but either would just scream _I have a hickey from the resident Vampire and also I am totally in grade nine._

He settled instead on wearing one of his zip up hoodies, with the neck undone slightly. That way he could hide the mark but didn't look like he was _hiding a mark_.

Satisfied, he made his way down the hall. There weren't many people about – it was just past the noon hour, and everyone was making good use of the energy they had consumed at lunch in their offices or at their various posts or desks. For once the most pressing problem was how to get the Orion functioning before the Wraith arrived, which, out of context seemed like a really important thing, but out of context seemed kinda minor and offered them a chance to approach the conundrum a lot more leisurely than the usual _fix it now or we're all going to die _crisis demanded. Knowing that there wasn't anything blowing up or killing people or trying to eat everyone right this instant was actually quite… relaxing.

He took a private moment in the transporter to press the heel of his palm hard against the mark Marie had left behind. It made his breath catch and he felt his dick twitch and nipples harden for a brief second before the irritating pain of friction against the bruised and broken skin muted the arousal. _Well, almost nothing wanting to eat us_, he thought, and shook his head against the weirdness that had become his life.

Stargates, space vampires, parasites, and now a real vampire that sucked his blood and let him fuck her, and this was _normal_, acceptable, and not even remotely the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him.

A small spray of white flowers waited for him on his desk, propped up in an empty beaker. They were, unless he was mistaken, the same ones that had been in Marie's hair that very morning. He pushed them aside as unobtrusively as possible, hiding them under a pile of paperwork that he'd been needing to catch up on since they'd pretty much stepped foot into Atlantis two years ago.

It was such a simple gesture, and so embarrassing, and yet, nothing at all like he would have attributed to Marie Susan Brooke, the badass Mary Sue Vampire, had he not actually known her personally.

Zelenka turned his back to Rodney and his shoulders shook slightly – bastard was muffling his laughter. Kavanaugh was pointedly _not _looking at Rodney, but the way he'd turned his face away in profile just made the pout that much more pronounced. Christ, talk about a sore loser.

Rodney spent half an hour to looming over everyone's shoulders and correcting their math before a strange sort of restlessness overcame him, and he found himself squeezing his hands into balled fists in an effort not to reach up and touch the marks on his neck. More than once he caught himself staring into space and wondering if Marie was hungry yet.

Hungry. Yes. Food. Good distraction.

Patting Zelenka once on the shoulder, Rodney left the lab and headed for the Mess. He was suddenly starving for something comforting and familiar. Taco soup or spaghetti, the sorts of complex processed foods that the people of the world they'd left behind hadn't developed. Hell, their flat bread and cheese and wine were delicious, but sometimes a man just wanted a piece of chocolate cake, a little taste of home.

Apparently he wasn't the only one.

Ronon and Teyla were sharing a table and a conversation, and Marie was already making her way over to them, another in a series of travel mugs gripped tightly in her hands. It was steaming slightly. Rodney availed himself of some of the coffee and one of the pre-packaged brownies, and sat down opposite Marie just as she was settling.

Teyla and Ronon offered greetings after their own fashion, which Rodney returned in his, and then he nodded at Marie's mug and said, "I thought… that, uh…" _that you were going to drink from me from now on, _"that you weren't going to deplete Carson's supply."

Marie smiled coyly at him from under her lashes. "This is just a snack to tide me over. The sun was pretty harsh there and my skin is really sensitized."

It wasn't meant to be dirty, at least, Rodney didn't think so, but the way she said 'sensitized' made warmth shoot straight to his dick. God.

He squirmed uncomfortably, then jumped as a fifth tray clattered onto the tabletop beside him. Sheppard had a piece of pie and a coffee of his own, and offered a nod all around the table – even to Marie – as he sat. His own neck was marked as well, similar to Rodney's, though he wasn't covering it up. It was just under his ear, peeking through his tousled hair, and Rodney wondered if it meant anything, that Marie had not bit him in the same spot.

It probably had more to do with angles and access and Rodney really needed to stop thinking about that _right now _if he wanted to be able to get up from the table any time soon.

Marie offered a polite nod back to Sheppard, and Rodney was relieved to see the Colonel's shoulders ratchet downwards slightly. So far, so good.

"Plans for this afternoon?" Sheppard asked around bites of his pie. Teyla had gotten herself a spot on a flight with a group of medical doctors heading to the mainland to check up on Jinto and some of the other Athosians, who had all come down with a sort of whooping cough. Ronon was going to sit in on a marine training session.

Marie was going to work on her potion a bit, but then she had no plans. Rodney confessed that he was at loose ends and was thinking about a movie, but the glint in Sheppard's eye made him think that his plans were about to change for the better.

"Wanna go for a spin?" Sheppard asked.

"In a Puddlejumper?" Rodney asked, slightly disappointed. Really, he thought Sheppard could do better than that.

"In the _Orion_," Sheppard corrected. "Zelenka got the hyperdrive online while we were away."

Rodney felt his eyes get round and the grin pull at the side of his mouth. "Sneaky Czech bastard," Rodney said, "He didn't say a thing when I was in the lab."

Sheppard chuckled. "I wanted to break the news to you myself."

Rodney jumped up and grabbed his dirty dishes. When Sheppard didn't immediately follow suit, he tapped his toes against the ground impatiently and said, "Well, Colonel Slow Pants? C'mon!"

"Okay, okay!" Sheppard laughed, holding up his hands in surrender. Then he turned to their guest. "Marie? Care to take a spin on a spaceship?"

"Absolutely," Marie enthused. "I've only been on a spaceship once before, and I never got to look out the windows."

"Which ship?" Sheppard asked, then gulped at the rest of his coffee as he stood.

"The _Enterprise_. NCC-1701-D." Marie offered a shit eating grin in return for their gawping expressions of incredulity.

Rodney absolutely was _not _jealous.

* * *

Elizabeth seemed happy to have Sheppard and Rodney out of her hair for the afternoon – a bored Colonel was a meddling Colonel, and if Rodney wanted to waste his free afternoon tinkering with their best line of defense, she wasn't about to say no.

She offered Marie a tight nod as the three of them boarded the _Orion_, and Rodney wondered once again at the change in behavior that Marie's very presence had wrought in his normally level headed leader. And in himself.

He felt happier. He knew he smiled more often. He wondered if getting laid regularly was the cause or Marie's mere presence. Would his own reaction have been any different if Marie wasn't a Mary Sue or a Vampire? If she was just his (seriously underaged) girlfriend?

He liked to think so. He wanted to believe that this contentment and importance that filled the small space under his ribs wasn't a side effect of having a Mary Sue about, but the feeling that having a significant other gave. Something he could recapture… something he could repeat after…

After Marie left.

Rodney shook his head and tried to keep off the sudden sting which that particular thought produced. Instead he focused on showing Marie through the corridors that led to the command decks.

A team of marines joined them, just in case there was some sort of trouble, and they looked about as enthusiastic to be there as they would be cleaning latrines. A handful of mech engineers came too, to make sure nothing went kablewie as they put the ship through its paces.

Sheppard, Rodney and Marie made their way up to the bridge. Sheppard settled into the pilot's seat and, after getting the greenlight from the engine room and an all-clear from Chuck, looked at Rodney and said, "Just a quick trip around Pluto and back."

Marie laughed and Rodney reached out and grabbed her hand as he felt the decking beneath his boots start to hum with life.

At the risk of jinxing everything, he let himself think, just for a half a second, that the only way that this moment could get any more perfect – launching a spaceship that he helped rebuild, in the presence of his best friend and a woman he admired and respected and who was hot as hell in bed - was if Teyla and Ronon were there too.

Marie twined her fingers around his and watched intently, with a huge smile on her face, as Atlantis began to shrink on their view screen. Within moments they were far enough away that the whole of the city was visible at once.

Marie gasped. "I've never seen it before. It's beautiful."

"Yeah," Rodney said, squeezing back, and feeling a swell of pride.

* * *

Ten minutes later, when they'd already circled the furthest planetoid in the solar system and were heading back in to dock, one of the engineers came running into the bridge, red faced and blowing.

"Aw crap," Marie grumbled and frowned, as the young woman tried to catch her breath enough to speak. "The Curse of the Mary Sue strikes again."

"Show me," Rodney said before the engineer could ask what Marie meant. uddenly today's little joy ride was a lot less joyful than Rodney had hoped.

The woman turned and went bolting back down to one of the access corridors. Sheppard squawked into his earpiece that he was stopping the _Orion _entirely, and that Rodney was to keep him updated.

Rodney didn't have the breath to reply, but clearly Marie – who was close on his heels – had heard it from his headset and shouted a confirmation across the open channel loud enough for Rodney's mic to pick it up.

They skidded to a halt inside one of the secondary relay junction rooms. From the look of things, the engineer had spotted the problem on a scan, took one look at the hackjob behind the panel she'd removed, and immediately ran for him. Rodney was equal parts satisfied – she knew that she wasn't good enough to take care of it herself and instead of mucking about, had come straight for him – and furious, because she _should _have been good enough to take care of it herself.

Rodney stormed across the room and glared into the hatch. Marie followed after, hand on the butt of her wand and eyes scanning the room as if she feared that someone would jump out at them.

"Who was working here last?" Rodney snarled, jamming his finger against the obviously damaged access panel.

"Ka-kavanaugh," the engineer panted.

"I told everyone to keep him _off _thisproject. If the _Orion's_ hyperdrive decides to spontaneous explode while I'm in there, it'll be your fault," he said, and dropped onto his knees. "Now, get back to the engine room and get the feed to this conduit cut off!"

"I'm sorry Dr. McKay, but the console wasn't accepting our input, and since it's directly connected to the dialing device, we didn't want-"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, yes. I'm required everywhere, to fix anything, at anytime. Clearly I'm invaluable."

"Sorry!"

Rodney shoved his head and shoulders into the access panel. "Stop apologizing and go!"

She went.

"Marie, can you hand me the--" he trailed off, snapping and pointing at the tool box the engineer had left beside his hip, but klaxons blared suddenly, cutting him off. Chuck immediately turned from Rodney, and scanned over the controls to his right.

"Rodney!" Sheppard shouted over his headset.

"That son of a bitch Kavanaugh!" Rodney snarled. "I bet he did this on purpose!"

"Rodney, you can't assume…" Sheppard began, his tinny voice tinged with worry, as Marie said, "Even if he did, it's probably because of me, it's an OOC thing…"

Both tried to say more, but then an explosion rocked the room to the side and Rodney found himself rocketing into Marie and tumbling end over end as they both slammed into the far wall. He landed on Marie, and there was a loud cracking sound as her ribs dug into the floor.

"Ow," she gasped. "Good thing you landed on me and not the other way around." She tried to smile, but it was tight.

Rodney's head swirled and then there was another sucking crack, and all of a sudden the room became a wind tunnel.

"Rodney!" Sheppard was screaming over the head set. "Marie! I'm reading a hull breach…!"

Rodney didn't have the heart to look over his shoulder to see what he knew would be there – a crack just small enough in the wall to suck all of the air out of the room, and possibly them with it, but not big enough to make sure that they died quickly and painlessly.

"Crap, crap!" Marie hissed and rolled him hard against the wall, jamming Rodney between the bulkhead and her own body. Marie was on top of him, arms wound around under his armpits, keeping him from sliding out into the coldness of space and death. Her other hand was grasping the leg of a bolted-down desk.

"Use your magic or something!" Rondey shouted over the building wail of the escaping air.

Marie clutched at the cloth at the small of his back desperately. "Listen!" she hissed. "My magic can say... put out a fire. Or shield them from a blast, or knock you down, out of the way if something is about to explode. But it can't stop a hull breach or make air where a vacuum has sucked it out, okay!"

"What do we do? There are just seconds--!"

"Stop panicking!" Marie snarled. "Can you reach my pouch?"

"What? I … what good…?"

"Reach in and smash something! Anything, any of them!"

"Marie, we can't, I can't…!"

"If you don't, you'll be dead."

And it was as simple as that really. Slip, or die.

Rodney, being rather fond of breathing, wrenched his hand around and dug it up under the button of her phial pouch. He felt his fingers slip against the cold surface of the smooth glass inside, struggling against the pull of the vacuum and the lightheadedness that the lack of oxygen was forcing onto him to single one out.

He twined his other hand into her sleeve, dreading what was about to happen, and yet so excited at the thought that hey, not only might he live through this, but he just might actually end up in an alternate reality for a little while, was amazing.

Finally, he managed to grab one. Biting his lip against the pain of glass slicing into his palm, Rodney squeezed.

There was a flash of intense, all-colours-at-once light, and a roaring pop sound beside his ears as the vacuum of air rushed out from around where they were laying. He felt his back hit something hard and metal, heard something that sounded like a surprised shout of voice around him, but then the oxygen deprivation took over, and the pain from his bruised ribs swelled, and Rodney tumbled into blackness.


	9. Chapter 9

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Nine**

_"Goodbye," he said. _

_"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." _

* * *

Rodney awoke with a groan, and sat up slowly. He could hear Marie chatting quietly with someone with a British accent. She was spinning the Atlantis-activating bracelet around and around on her wrist while the British man was trying to scan it with something, his tone seriously impressed. Rodney could hear the clacking of the bracelet, the whirr of something mechanical, the excitement in the man's tone, but he couldn't make them out from where his face was squashed against some dusty-smelling yellow foam.

Still fuzzy-brained, Rodney took in his surroundings: he was on a seat, and by the distinctive whining and the sensation of the press of an unperceived weight on the room, he was mostly likely on a spaceship.

Forcing his eyes wider, he took in a hexagonal central console, bluish lights, a kind of coral yet steampunk look to everything that – oh, _wow_ – and its occupants: a blonde girl in jeans with too much eye makeup, a ridiculously good looking man in forties military garb, and a man with big ears, way too much intensity, and a thick black leather jacket.

And a sonic screwdriver. Which he was currently waving at Marie like a medical tricorder. Whatever he was finding was making him laugh.

The soothing strains of Glen Miller came from a hidden speaker somewhere.

"Doctor Who, new episodes, Season One," Rodney whispered reverently, "After _The Doctor Dances_, but before _The Parting of the Ways_."

"Hush," Marie said, immediately coming to his side. She pressed a cool hand against his forehead and looked into his eyes. "First rule of Sliding is that you don't give away the plot. Are you okay?"

Rodney passed up nodding his head and just let Marie lever him upright. He sat on the grating and swept his eyes over the openly curious expression of characters he'd only ever seen on television. It left strange fluttering in his chest, a pulling on the back of his eyes, a bubbling giddiness in his stomach. Jesus – this must be what Marie felt like every damn day.

"Impressive," said the one in the leather jacket. "Down to the episode, even. You know us?"

Rodney nodded, tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

The man in black turned to Marie. "You too?"

"Yeah," Marie said, "but only peripherally. You know, don't get much British TV where I was." She turned to Rodney. "This guy seems to be taking it better than Sheppard did, at least. I'm not familiar with these folks," Marie admitted as they both worked on getting Rodney to his feet. "Help a girl out."

"Oh, yes!" the chap in the black said with glee, pocketing his screwdriver. "_Do _help her out."

"Okay," Rodney said softly, still in awe but recovering smartly. He let his eyes skip over them, his brain skittering away from the implications of what he was about to admit, but then he forced his eyes to pick out one and just _say it_. "The young lady is Rose Tyler, formerly a shop girl from London, much smarter than she's given credit for, even though on the rare occasion she helps to operate the TARDIS – this ship – it's like she's programming a recalcitrant VCR. I … kind of like that about her, actually."

"Um, thanks?" the woman in question said, shaking both Rodney and Marie's hands.

"It was a compliment," Marie assured her. "That's just Rodney's style."

The handsome airforce officer came forward before Rodney could introduce him. "Captain Jack Harkness," he said, taking Rodney's hand in a firm grip, one finger sliding suggestively along the base of his wrist. Rodney absolutely did _not _shiver. "I've already met your lovely lady friend, and might I say that smart is sexy and I _like _a sturdy man."

"Jack!" the man in black snapped, but there was no venom in his tone. Jack just offered him an unrepentant grin.

"All you need to know about _him,_" Rodney said to Marie, his voice shaking a little as he tried to extract his fingers, "is that he's from the fifty first century, where our quaint little gender binaries have long since been done away with, and his mojo is almost as strong as yours."

"Down boy," Marie said smilingly. "This one's mine." She made a point of directing Harkness' gaze to the scabbed punctures on Rodney's neck.

Rodney felt himself flush under the scrutiny of two such attractive and sexually magnetic people and wondered again that this was his life. He fidgeted with the zipper of his shirt and Marie reached up to still his hand. She made him leave the zipper at half mast, where the reddened edge of the bruise would be visible. It felt strangely lewd and voyeuristic all at once.

"Share?" Harkness asked, and his pleading look was only partially for show. Rodney shivered again, especially at the way Marie's eyes became half-lidded, like she was really honestly contemplating it.

Hastily, before any sort of bargaining could begin and he'd have to point out that he was not gay (although, for Jack Harkness, he was pretty sure he was willing to give it the good college try), he turned to the last occupant and said, "And _this_ is the ninth incarnation of the Doctor. He's a Time Lord from Gallifrey. The last of the Time Lords, actually. And… I can't believe I just said that out loud."

The Doctor shoved Jack gently aside and shook Rodney's hand vigorously. "And you're Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD. You made that bracelet that Miss Brooke is wearing! Big fan, I am!"

Rodney goggled. _"Really?"_

"Oh, yes! I know exactly who the both of you are, because I know most everything!"

"I think I like this one. Modest, isn't he?" Marie said with a giggle.

"Completely," The Doctor offered, deadpan.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Rodney found himself clutching a near ridiculously delicate china cup filled with a thick, barley-like tea that the Doctor insisted was the height of fashion on Crimeatharous, and watching with shell shocked bemusement as Jack Harkness led Marie around the room in a lively little waltz so complicated that Rose and the Doctor had stopped trying to follow along with and now were also just watching.

"It's those preternatural reflexes she's got," defended the Doctor as Rose hopped up onto the old car seat beside Rodney and picked up her own cup of tea.

"But Jack can do it," Rose pointed out with a smirk. The Doctor sputtered and Rose added, "C'mon, just admit it. You're just not a good dancer. And now you're pouting because there's something you're not good at."

"I can learn," the Doctor said darkly, fetching his own tea from the tray he'd set up by the console. "I can learn to do anything, and do it well, and that's not something you can say for all you hairless monkeys."

"Hey," Rodney said, feeling like he should, somehow, defend his species; even against a fictional alien and _dear god _there it was again, that strange internal swooping that signaled that his precious, genius brain was having serious issues with this whole not-being-real thing.

"Tell me about Atlantis?" Rose asked, squirming in close to Rodney, and Rodney was grateful for the distraction. Rose smelled nice – whatever shampoo the TARDIS stocked flattered her, and Rodney thought maybe he should be thinking about flirting with Rose, because he was male and she was female and also she was a Companion and hello, of course he'd fantasized about her, but…

Well, because right now he had Marie and he never thought he'd think it, but he was strangely content knowing that. Also, _Rose Tyler wasn't real._

Only. She was.

It was… very strange.

"It's about the size of Manhattan," Rodney started, and even the Doctor turned his attention to the narrative. "But there are no Daleks there." He smiled.

"Why would there be Daleks in Manhattan?" the Doctor asked with a frown.

Rodney gulped at some of his tea. Crap, he'd been in this reality an hour and already he'd broken Marie's cardinal rule. He wondered if Marie had ever broken it herself – then he wondered if he'd maybe already been given some hints that he'd dismissed.

"Never mind," Rodney said, licking the droplets from his lips. "Uh, Atlantis, right. It was built by the Ancients – the Ancestors, the people of the Pegasus galaxy call them – about ten thousand years ago. We found it hiding on the bottom of the ocean."

"How did you get there?" Rose asked, eyes wide with wonder.

Rodney grinned, letting the pride colour his response. "The Stargate. I programmed it to dial an eighth chevron myself."

He waited for the congratulatory slap on the back from the Doctor, but all he got in return was a faintly confused look from the Time Lord.

"Star Gate?" the Doctor repeated.

"Oh. _Oh_," Rodney said, putting down his teacup and rubbing his hands together with relish. "Have you got something I can write on? This is going to be _fun_."

The Doctor produced a tablet with a stylus and Rose wandered away to swap stories of pig-headed heroes with Jack and Marie five minutes in.

The one thing Rodney could appreciate was how quick a study the Doctor was; well of course he was, he was _The Doctor_.

The Doctor was following along with no problems, and then he had a Eureka moment. It was slightly disconcerting to see it in someone else. He was so used to living them instead. The enthusiasm with which the Doctor sprang to his feet caught the attention of the others, and they wandered around from the other side of the console to watch.

"I get it," the Doctor said. He sprang to his feet, jogged out of the room, and returned holding something kind of unwieldy and metallic. "It works sort of like this!"

"And what is that?" Rose asked, interested again now that the Doctor was the one offering the explanations.

"Oh no!" Marie laughed. "This won't be good!"

Rodney squinted at the thing the Doctor plopped into his hands. It was rectangular with a cylindrical intake of some sort, and had pipes extending from an engine block, but it was remarkably light.

"Is this…?" he asked, and then he felt his own jaw dropping. "No. _No_," he said. "The Stargate absolutely does not work like a _Flux Capacitor_."

Marie howled with laugher.

"What, you don't think you're the first person to accidentally breach the reality barriers?" the Doctor said with a smirk. "Why do you think Doc Brown insists that the deLorian only go 88 miles per hour?"

"You mean the damn thing _works?_" Rodney yelped. "_How?_ More importantly, can I take it apart?"

"Keep it," the Doctor said with an offhand little wave and a secretive smile.

Rodney goggled, staring at the device in his hands, cradling it reverently.

* * *

"I think I might actually be freaking out a little," Rodney admitted as he stared at the bed. He set aside the Flux Capacitor on a little nightstand and, his hands suddenly empty, shoved them into his pockets for want of anything else to do with them.

The Doctor had offered them a guest room for the night, and Rodney was just exhausted enough right now to want to faceplant into the very soft looking pillows. He was, however, also familiar enough with _Doctor Who _that he knew deep down in his gut that the moment he did drop into sleep that somewhere a klaxon would blare and then they'd all be running for their lives from Daleks or Cybermen or monsters made out of wobbly latex with zippers visible up the back and _oh god, oh god, _Rodney did not want to die in a _television show for god's sake_—

"Hey, whoa!" Marie said, and knelt on the edge of the bed and reached up to cup his face in her hands. "Breathe, buddy," she said softly.

Rodney closed his eyes and grabbed her shoulders and did as he was commanded, sucking in lungful after lungful, even though this air even _tasted _different, tasted of Crimeatharoun tea and dust and something uniquely Gallifreyian.

Marie's thumbs swept over the arch of his eyebrows, over and over, soft and gentling and

strangely comforting, and Rodney swallowed hard against the bile that pressed in his throat and took a few more breaths.

"It's okay," Marie said, her voice soft, "I get it. Believe me, I get it."

Rodney nodded and swallowed again and then, desperate for more skin contact, for more comfort, for something to take his mind off of everything, something to just ground him firmly in the here and now, in his own body, he pressed Marie back onto the bed, following her down, covering her mouth with his.

"Hello, sailor," Marie whuffed out between his desperate, air-stealing kisses. Rodney felt like his mouth was burning. "What's this?"

"I just… I'm real," Rodney said, smearing the words against her cheek, the hollow below her ear, into her hair. "I insist on it. I am real."

Her hands came up, nails pricking into his back through his shirt. "Of course you're real Rodney. We're all real. All of us. All of it. Everything ever."

Rodney swallowed again, pressed his face against her neck and shook, trying hard not to let the hot tears that burned against the back of his eyelids escape.

"Oh, shhhhh," Marie said as the first tear slipped free, branding her cool skin. She wriggled up the bed until she was resting against the headboard. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pillowed his head on her breasts and slipped her fingers through his hair, over and over, petting. "It's okay, Rodney, it's all okay."

"Can I?" he asked, and he wished his voice didn't sound so weak, so desperate. He reached down, pressed his palm across the zipper of her fly, and Marie gasped, arched up into the touch. "Please?"

"Hell yes," Marie said, and took the zipper of his shirt between her teeth, inching it downwards in a move that should not have been sexy but so, so _was_.

* * *

In the morning, Rodney woke to find Marie already dressed and wandered off somewhere. He followed the smell of brewing coffee and toast to its source, then stopped in the doorway and gawped. Rodney had the pleasure of witnessing something he'd never thought possible – the Doctor, pre-caffeine, stumbling about the TARDIS kitchen.

Rodney couldn't help but stare, and the Doctor, pawing ineffectively at the tea pot, didn't have to lift his head to point a sugar spoon directly at Rodney's face and growl, "Watch it, genius. I haven't told the other two what Marie is; keep staring and I'll tell 'em why Marie isn't having breakfast with us."

Rodney stepped fully into the kitchen – only slightly surprised that it looked almost identical to his Nan's back in northern Ontario, down to the chintzy rooster tiles painted onto the backsplash – and honed in immediately on the already-brewed coffee in the Black & Decker percolator on the counter.

Clearly, Marie had stopped in here first before she'd gone to explore whatever it was she was exploring in the TARDIS. The Doctor looked at Rodney's mug enviously as he clutched it to his chest, inhaling the sweet perfume, and then at his own puttering kettle.

"I should take up coffee," the Doctor groused.

"Why would you think telling them what Marie really is, is a threat?" Rodney asked, between seeps, smiling as the cobwebs burned away in his brain and the meaning of the Doctor's words became clear.

The Doctor shrugged. "Neither of you brought it up right away. And you hide your…" he flicked his fingers at the base of Rodney's collar, where the latest hickey was burning slightly against the inside of his shirt.

"Do you _know _what she is?" Rodney asked, curious now, leaning into the Doctor's space.

"A plasmavore," came the bright voice behind them, and didn't it just figure that Captain Jack bloody Harkness was a morning person. "Or was that supposed to be a secret?"

The Doctor and Rodney both turned to blink owlishly at him. Jack burst into full on belly laughter.

"Oh, your faces!" he chortled. "Two caffeine deprived geniuses. You think you're the only ones with the ability to put clues together?"

"Then how did you know, smarty pants?" the Doctor grumbled. The kettle whistled and the Doctor pounced, pouring it out into both a teapot and into a mug with a tea bag waiting patiently in the bottom.

Harkness waltzed into the room, popping through the steps of the complicated dance he and Marie had been doing together the evening before, reached deliberately into Rodney's space to get a mug, then, with his arms still on either side of a pie-eyed Rodney, poured himself a cup of coffee. His nose brushed purposefully against the hickey on Rodney's collarbone.

"Signs," Harkness said, turning and wriggling his way between the Doctor and Rodney against the kitchen counter, hitching his hips against the peeling lineoleum. "Her eyeteeth – sharper than a human's. Her eyes – wrong colour for a human. No heartbeat when I was dancing right up against her. And, the good Doctor McKay's looking a bit ... drained this morning."

"Har har," Rodney muttered and moved a few steps away, out of Harkness' truly magnetic field of personal gravity.

"Don't tell Rose," The Doctor said, closing his eyes to finally sip at his long-awaited tea.

"Why not?" Harkness asked.

"Because Marie's not a plasmavore."

Harkness turned to frown at Rodney. "She's not?"

"She's a Vampire," Rodney said softly.

"Ah, and humans didn't learn that Vampires existed until well into the thirty third century, gotcha," Harkness said with a decisive nod.

The Doctor echoed the gesture. "And the resulting backlash and riots were so bad that the entire population was nearly wiped out."

"But Rose," Rodney said, "she's met aliens and stuff. Surely she would be okay with… I mean, wouldn't she? What's the real difference? That they originated on Earth? So what?"

Harkness turned to capture Rodney's gaze, his expression for once void of all flirting, one hundred percent serious. "How did you take it, Doctor McKay, when you learned that the monsters were real?"

Rodney swallowed hard. When he spoke, his voice was hardly above a whisper. "I think I see your point."

* * *

Rodney found Marie in a room full of stars an hour later. The walls were like screens on a television, or rather, more like the holodeck on the Enterprise, three dimensional and present. Her cheeks still held the faint pink glow of a well-fed Vampire, and she was gazing in wonder at the galaxies that spun their lazy arms in wide circles around her, all within arm's reach.

Rodney wondered if he could reach up and give them a flick, make them start to revolve the other way.

"Pretty cool," Marie said softly, taking the hand that Rodney held out to her. "You having fun on the TARDIS?"

"Fun," Rodney repeated with a snort. "That's a word for it."

"Aren't you?" Marie turned to face him, violet eyes filled with refracted light and concern. "Because, I mean, there's only a few more hours left before we can slide, so we could go hole up somewhere or, or try sliding back early, if you would rather risk the Slip Sickness…"

"I am," Rodney assured her. "I just… am realizing how much more fun this show is when you're on the other side of the television screen."

Marie smiled. "I seemed to get that little revelation a lot, myself. Anything in particular that's bugging you?"

Rodney thought _how melancholy the Doctor really is, how adrift and lost Harkness acts, how desperate for approval Rose is, how routine their lives become when you can see all the details, how even here you can't be yourself, you will never be able to be yourself anywhere, and if you can't on the TARDIS then where…?_

Instead he said, "How cranky the Doctor is before his morning cuppa."

Marie laughed and kissed the side of Rodney's neck gently and they spent the rest of the morning making out under the stars.

Eventually they had to come up for air and to fill Rodney's grumbling stomach. Between his hypoglaecima and Marie's constant 'attentions', he had to eat far more often than usual, so they made their way back to the kitchen.

"Jack propositioned me this morning," Marie said conversationally as they meandered through the halls. Rodney always thought that it would be easy to get lost in the TARDIS, but somehow, now that he was here, the layout made sense, always seemed to lead directly to where he wanted to go.

Rodney wasn't sure how to take Marie's announcement, so he said nothing.

"I might take him up on it," Marie said. "I need more blood than you can offer alone, with your condition, and he seems interesting."

Rodney felt his fingers curl hard against the back of Marie's hand, felt his jaw clench and something sour twist in his stomach, but all he said was "Fine."

Marie tugged him to a stop and looked up into his face, studying his expression. Rodney looked away, afraid of what she might see there.

"Are you jealous, Rodney?" she asked.

"No," he lied.

Marie pulled her fingers out of his and put her palms on her hips. "I'm not your girlfriend, Rodney. I'm not permanent. You knew that going into this. I'm leaving Atlantis is a few days."

"I _know_," Rodney snapped. "I'm not stupid."

"No, I don't think you _do _know, Rodney. You've let yourself get carried up in this. But this--" she gestured between them. He took a step back, not because he feared she was going to hit him, but because he didn't want to hear what she was about to say, even if he knew it to be true. "—this can't be anything. You knew that going in. You can't even be sure that _this_ is real. I like spending the time with you, Rodney, I like how you make me feel… normal. But I have to leave." She said it gently, and that made it worse.

"Why?" Rodney snapped, suddenly, and he wondered where the protest came from, because he knew, he had always known, deep down, that this couldn't be anything, but still he asked, "Why not? Why can't you stay? Don't you like it on Atlantis? You could _help _us, Marie. You could save lives! We could… _we _could… something, I don't know! Something!"

"I can't, please understand… I don't belong there any more than you belong here, Rodney. I can't stay there any more than you can stay here." She dug her nails into the tender skin on his knuckles.

He ripped his hands from her grasp. "So what, you'll just… run! Run away, your whole life, for the rest of forever! You'll just run!"

Marie turned her back to him, eyes squeezed shut in frustration. "It's not running!"

"Then _what is it?_" Rodney snarled. He turned away, because he couldn't stand the sight of her bowed shoulders, her trembling fists. "Because from where I'm standing it sure as hell seems like it!"

"I am _searching for my son!"_

Rodney snapped his head around. It felt like someone had just kicked him in the solar plexus. Hot and fast, emotion flooded up his throat –confusion, terror, annoyance, finally understanding and… pity? Revulsion? He wasn't sure.

"Your… son?" Rodney whispered. He reached out slowly, noted absently that his hand was trembling, and pulled her around to face him. Her cheeks had gone white, the freckles that her life had left behind stood out as dark ink stains along her nose.

Marie covered her eyes with her hands. "Shit," she said softly. "I wasn't going to tell you about Trieze." She sighed, and Rodney was struck with how sad it sounded.

Rodney let go and reached up to finger his own love bites. Marie noticed, looked through her fingers at him, and then scowled.

"You selfish son of a bitch," she hissed, dropping her hands into white-knuckled fists. "Worried about your own hide?"

"No, I…" he gulped, because it was a lie, because he could feel the sudden fear curling through his gut. "Should I be?" he challenged.

"No," Marie spat. "And don't worry. I won't touch you again, either."

There was a gust of wind and Rodney realized for the first time how fast it was that Marie could really move when she was motivated. He stood in the hallway alone, and banged his forehead against the walls of the TARDIS.

* * *

Rose and the Doctor kept their eyes dutifully on their sandwiches when Rodney entered the kitchen. There was no doubt that they had heard the argument, though what Rose might have thought about it, Rodney had no clue.

He morosely accepted his own sandwich, didn't ask what was in it, aside from the cursory sniff for citrus, and chewed his way through the contents without tasting anything besides ash.

"You know," the Doctor said as he was clearing away his own plate of crumbs. "She's right. She can't stay in Atlantis any more than the two of you can stay on the TARDIS. Eventually, the reality would start to reject you."

"Rapid Cascade Failure?" Rodney asked, looking up.

The Doctor only nodded, set a cup of coffee down beside Rodney's elbow, and left him and Rose alone for what seemed like a serious girl talk. Rose wound herself up and said, "Love sucks."

Rodney snorted. "What, that's it? 'Love sucks'? That's your big speech? You've travelled all over space and time and that's all you've got?"

"It's a universal constant," Rose said, patted Rodney's arm, and cleared her own plate away, leaving Rodney alone at the table and wondering what the cameras didn't catch between action sequences that made Rose so bitter, when she was right here, with her beloved Doctor.

Rodney stayed in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon, slowly making his way through a pot of coffee and feeling a little bit like he was grieving, even though nobody had died, and Marie really hadn't gone anywhere, yet.

It the logical side of him knew, it understood… this had never meant to be permanent. He had no claim on Marie or her affections, if she could even feel love, and the only thing he had meant to revel in was the pure physicality of their connection.

And if Harkness wandered in an hour later, shirtless and with a fresh livid red mark above one nipple, well then… Marie had made it clear that wasn't any of Rodney's damn business, now was it?

* * *

Rodney went back to the bedroom he and Marie had shared, and found her there, sitting on the foot of the still mussed bed and looking shamed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I… forget, sometimes. To, you know… _feel_. I spend a lot of time trying not to, so… so sometimes I forget that I can hurt people's feelings, even if I'm not real to them, even if I'm … meaningless."

Rodney dropped down onto the mattress beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. "You're real to me," Rodney said softly. He kissed her cheek. "And I'll miss you. And maybe I'll regret what we did, eventually, but I don't right now."

Marie nodded against his shoulder and then pressed her face into his chest. She started shaking and making a strange, strangled sound, and it wasn't until Rodney felt something warm seep through his shirt that he realized that she was crying.

"Shhh," he said, bringing his arms up to pet her back, knowing that this time it was his turn to soothe _her._ "It's okay."

"I'm so lonely," she whispered. "I need him. I need someone else who understands what it means to be… like this."

"Tell me about him," Rodney asked, and wasn't too surprised to realize that he was genuinely interested.

* * *

Several hours, a change of shirts – because ew, Marie cried _blood_ – and a shower later, Marie and Rodney stood in the TARDIS' console room, shaking hands and thanking the Doctor and his Companions for their hospitality.

"Sorry it was so boring," the Doctor said, handing Marie a piece of the TARDIS's wiring for her potions. "Come back another time and perhaps we'll have a bit of an adventure, eh?"

"I am, for one, thoroughly thankful that this was adventure-free," Marie said, pointedly ignoring the lustful look that both Harkness and Rodney were pointing at the piece of TARDIS that she slipped inside her pouch.

Then she deliberately reached out and wrapped her fingers around the hand that Rodney had the Flux Capaciter nestled in. He grabbed back as well as he was able, and waved jovially with the other.

"Enjoy ancient Japan!" Rodney said, waving cheekily as Marie smashed her last phial keyed for the SGC into the decking.

"Hey!" The Doctor scowled. "How did you know that I was going to surprise them with--"

But then the flash of light enveloped everything within Rodney's field of vision, and a popping sound filled his ears, and whatever it was that the Doctor was going to say was lost in the void between realities.


	10. Chapter 10

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Ten**

_"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."_

* * *

Rodney regained consciousness to the waltz of beeps from the heart monitor.

"I guess Slipping is harder on humans than I thought," said a voice softly, and Rodney wasn't sure if it was far away or if it was just his hearing that was muffled. He wanted to turn his head towards it, but feared that vertigo might seize hold, so he held still.

He recognized the ambient sounds and scents of the infirmary before he realized who the voice belonged to, which, yeah, probably said a lot about his life these past two years. Antiseptic, cottony gauze, the faint tang of bleach meant to cover an even fainter tang of copper, the soft shuffle of shoes on linoleum, the clink of metal tools in metal trays on metal trolleys. And the woman speaking was…

Something itchy, just above his collarbone, throbbed.

Ah, Marie. Right.

Marie and Mary Sues and Vampires and the TARDIS and Rodney had shown _the Doctor _howto build a Stargate and he'd been given a Flux Capacitor in return, and Marie had fucked Jack Harkness and Rodney… had banged his head against the wall, a lot.

Literally and figuratively, because being with Marie, loving her and wanting her to love him back just felt so natural, and he couldn't seem to make her want it in return. It really did feel like he was bashing headlong into brick walls, constantly.

He was starting to wonder if he was getting enough of a figurative concussion to give up. Then he wondered if, with the Mary Sue around, he would have the option or luxury of deciding to give up. What if he was compelled to keep running into that particular brick wall until he smashed open his skull?

Okay, now the metaphor was not only being stretched, but it was also getting gruesome.

Perhaps this was what The Doctor had meant by "she can't stay."

Rodney forced himself to blink a few times until the horrendous imagery faded and he was just staring up at a plain old boring infirmary ceiling. Which, incidentally, did not look like the one that he usually stared at in Atlantis.

_Oh crap,_ Rodney thought. _Where are we now? Did something go wrong? Will I be condemned to Slide forever until I find home, like Marie?_

Then he blinked a little more and realized, through the harsh haze of panic, that the ceiling incidentally _did _looka lot like the one in Cheyenne Mountain. His hypothesis was confirmed when Doctor Janet Frasier poked her head into his line of vision and said, "Hello, Dr. McKay. How are you feeling?"

"Uhg," Rodney said, which he felt summed it all up quite nicely.

Frasier smiled at him, soft and beaming, and she had way better bedside manner than Carson. Possibly because she had tits, but Rodney wasn't going to admit that out loud.

She helped him into a sitting position, pushing pillows in behind his back, and went about the usual doctorly poking and prodding so deftly and subtly that Rodney barely realized it was happening until she shone that silly little penlight in his eyes. "Uhg," he repeated when she was done, just for good measure.

She double checked that the IV needle sticking into the bend of his elbow was still secure- it was, though jiggling it like that made it _hurt, _thankyou very much! – patted the saline bag it was attached to, then stepped back. His visitor, who had been hovering out of his periphery for the duration of Frasier's poking, stepped forward.

It was, of course, Marie, looking flushed and healthy and glowing and ever so slightly contrite. "I've never Slid with a full human before," she said softly. "I'm sorry it keeps knocking you out like that."

Rodney licked his lips and swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth enough to speak. Marie caught on and reached for the cup of water that was waiting patiently on the bedstand. She held it to his lips and he reached up and took it out of her fingers, because he'd just been unconscious, he wasn't an invalid and could feed himself.

He took an annoyed slurp, and then another, and before Marie could admonish him to go slowly, he set the cup aside, still half full. Then he said: "Well, it's not like I'll be doing it again."

Marie looked like she was about to say something, then stopped and licked her own lips and said, "No, I suppose it's not."

Rodney pushed himself upright a little more, just so he didn't feel so prone in front of Marie. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, so that it covered the fresh gauze patch that someone had put over his latest hickey, along with something that smelled faintly of creams and antiseptic. "I'm too important on Atlantis to go anywhere. Hell, I'm too important to the SGC, too, the way they keep sending me messages and notes to look over, and now that I'm here they're probably going to want me to stay for at least a week to look over everyone's reports, and I'm going to be away from my lab for even _longer _I'm going to get so far behind on my own paperwork that Elizabeth will probably bar me from doing off world missions for at least a month."

"Well, we wouldn't want that, now would we? Better get Dr. McKay home ASAP," someone said from the door way, and Marie turned to look at the new arrival. Her face lit up, a genuine smile crossing her features that made Rodney's gut twist with what he now recognized as jealousy.

"Daniel!" Marie said, and dove into the hug that Doctor Jackson offered.

Rodney forced his fists to unclench themselves, and his jaw to relax.

"We hoped we'd get some time to chat with you, when we heard that you were in Atlantis," Daniel said, "But we didn't expect it to be like that."

Rodney made an impatient sound, and Daniel looked up at him and must have interpreted it correctly because he let go of Marie and explained, "You both dropped into the secondary metallurgies lab."

"Someone sent my research on Marie here when we vanished, I assume," Rodney said tightly, jumping ahead of the tedious conversation that was of course going to occur when Marie asked why.

"Ah," she said instead, following along. "To try to find a way to track where we went?"

Daniel shrugged. "We were going to ask the To'kra, but then you guys rendered it unnecessary. How are you, Rodney?"

Rodney mimicked Daniel's laissez-faire shrug as best as he was able to with the IV still attached to his arm. "Okay. It was fine. I met the Doctor."

Daniel's brow furrowed. "Doctor Who?" he asked.

Marie burst into startled laughter, and Rodney couldn't help it, he had to join in.

* * *

Rodney wasn't quite feeling up to walking out of there just yet, so he settled for assuring Elizabeth, via radio message through the gate, that he was just fine and coming home as soon as the SGC had a clear patch in its ingoing/outgoing roster that afternoon.

Elizabeth sounded relieved, and promised to pass the message on to everyone back home. When the _Orion _limped back to Atlantis two days ago, sans Rodney and Marie, the hope had been that they had successfully Slid, but no one was certain whether Marie would have had a phial to bring them home again. Either that or they had been sucked out into space, but Rodney's subcutaneous transmitter hadn't been located anywhere in the vast coldness of Atlantis' solar system.

Rodney insisted on being wheeled to the primary physics and engineering labs, a task Marie happily took on, as it afforded her the chance to catch up with those few friends she had made while at the SGC. Sam spent all of her time asking Marie questions and taking notes on the answers, and barely even looked at Rodney.

Well, Rodney didn't blame Sam. Jealousy could be a bitter feeling, he knew first hand now, and the gauze on Rodney's neck did make it rather obvious where Rodney's attention had been the last week. Sam would get over it, and when Marie was gone, perhaps she'd finally use this as momentum to confess how in love with Rodney she really was and finally fall into his arms.

Though, the thought of Marie leaving was a bitter pill to swallow, and dampened Rodney's enthusiasm for his Sam fantasy.

Uhg.

They finished the rounds of the labs with an hour and a half before Harriman could slot them into the activation roster, so that left them with enough time to have a meal in the Mountain's commissary. Rodney hadn't browbeaten these particular KPs into the importance and severity of his allergy, and so he didn't trust any of this food not to have citrus in it, and so asked Marie to taste everything first.

"I don't think I remember was citrus tastes like, Rodney," she said with a wink, and licked a small piece of everything he'd taken onto his tray. She never chewed or swallowed any, though. She proclaimed it all safe, and Rodney set to finishing up his last Earth-food meal for a while.

"Psst," he said to Marie. "Go snag as much microwave popcorn as you can carry. I want to bring it back for Teyla and Ronon."

Marie grinned at him and left him to eat, and to watch her walk away. And just like that, Rodney realized that this wouldn't be the last time Marie did walk away from him, but it was darn close. Her back was to him and she was going on without him, head up and eyes sad and fists clenched, because that was the only way that someone like Marie could face the future and it was… depressing.

Because she was nice. Because she had a silly sense of humour. Because she told terrible jokes and did thoughtful things. Because she was tired, and lonely and Rodney…

Wasn't enough for her. Was never going to _be _enough for her.

And, watching her walk away from him like that, it seemed… okay.

Not okay that she was alone, but okay that it wasn't him who could fill up that space in her. Okay that he finally understood that he… couldn't be what she needed. Ever.

That she would walk away, one more time, and it would be… okay.

It seemed oddly final, even though he knew that she would be back, any second. And she was, arms full of popcorn packages and stunned and charmed kitchen staff behind her.

But when she sat down across from him, Rodney didn't feel the normal tug to get into her space, the urge to lean in and offer up his face for a kiss, or his neck. Instead he just felt…

Sad.

Marie put the popcorn down beside him and, sensing his stillness, went quiet across from him.

"Rodney?" she said after a few moments of silence.

"We should get ready to go," Rodney said softly. "I need to get my stuff. The… yeah."

Marie gathered up the popcorn and silently pushed his wheelchair back to the infirmary. They were both quiet as Frasier ran through one last check up before clearing him and putting all of his pilfered popcorn into a knapsack, along with a supply of antibiotics and candy suckers for Carson and his Athosian patients. The backpack was already full of other things that the SGC wanted to send with Rodney – data sticks and project files and the like. He was told that there was a crate of ammo and other things waiting in the 'Gate room to go through with him.

Marie took the knapsack and there in the infirmaries they made their goodbyes to Landry and SG-1.

"Tell Jack I'm sorry I missed him," Marie said softly, and then they were walking down the halls together, descending the stairs into the Debarkation room.

Before they went into the room, Marie reached out and grabbed Rodney's hand. She cupped his cheek in her other hand and turned his head, pulled him down for a soft, sad kiss.

"Marie," Rodney said. "Come with me."

Marie said nothing, but chewed on the corner of her lip and let him tug her into the room and to the bottom of the ramp with their twined fingers.

They paused as Harriman's voice filled the room, announcing the status of the 'Gate's dialing, and then there was the swooshing blowback of the event horizon, and home was twinkling on the other side of a puddle, of another galaxy.

Rodney took a step forward, and was tugged to a stop by his grip on Marie. She hadn't moved.

"Marie," he said again.

There was a soft sobbing sound, and when he turned around, he was surprised to see tears, red and gruesome, sliding down Marie's pale cheeks. "I can't stay," Marie said. "I don't even know if I should come back to Atlantis with you."

"You have to," Rodney said, knowing he was grasping at straws. "At least for your potion."

Marie shook her head and carefully tugged her fingers free of his. He tried to hold on, but he might as well have tried to hold on to a hurricane, her strength was so far beyond his scope. "We were gone too long; it's not a potion any more. Now it's just soup."

Rodney looked at the grating beneath his boots. He felt his cheeks flushing and hated that everyone in the control room would be able to see it, too. He wished that he had a remote so he could close the blast doors in their gawping faces. Instead he turned his own face to the shimmering pool of the Stargate and tried not to notice out of the corner of his vision how it made Marie's eyes refract a nearly white colour, pearly and like the eyes of a dead fish.

Those dead fish eyes blinked and looked away from him.

Silently, Rodney held his hand back out to her.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Rodney," she said softly. "I really don't. I might stay. And I can't."

"You have to find Treize," he sighed.

"I don't know…" Marie said.

"What if you didn't find him?" Rodney asked, suddenly, the thought swelling in him like a fear, like a panic attack, like claustrophobia and anaphylactic shock. "What if you just settled somewhere, instead? What if you just went home? What if you just made a life for yourself. Either he lived and he's out there, taking care of himself right now, or he didn't. Maybe it's time that you stopped running after him."

"Settle with you, you mean," Marie said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. With the ambient hum of the machinery in the room, Rodney almost didn't hear it.

"Why not?"

Marie ran a hand through her hair, pulling it away from her forehead, off of her neck. "Because I've seen the kind of life you lead, Rodney. You're the main character in a sci-fi action adventure. Your life is nuts. I can't imagine what might happen to you if a Mary Sue hung around. Because it's not fair, Rodney, because I can't change the way your friends act, I can't rewrite your personality, because I can't rewrite your destiny simply by being there. Do you want Elizabeth to stay a bitch? Don't you miss spending time with your friends? With John? Having me there…" she trailed off, gesturing flippantly. "I'm _never _any good for _anyone_."

She looked down, red tears pooling at the sides of her eyes, and Rodney didn't know what to say, because it wasn't exactly like he could disagree. Marie wasn't good to have around; and yet he still wanted her. Would the wanting fade in time, he wondered.

"Maybe not even Treize," she said. "Maybe it would be … maybe I'll just… go home. I don't know."

"To where nobody knows who and what you are, and doesn't care?" Rodney asked, and flexed his fingers, reminding her that he was still offering her his hand.

Marie smiled, but the corners of her lips barely twitched upwards. "That actually sounds kinda nice. Obscurity is… attractive."

"Just come back," Rodney pleaded. "Just for a while. Just 'till the Wraith come?"

"You'll be fine," Marie whispered. "I trust you to get them through it."

Rodney tried to chuckle, but it burned against the top of his lungs. "Is that a plot hint?"

Marie shook her head and didn't answer.

Rodney dropped his hand to his side, then brought it up again to reach out, cup Marie's cheek in his palm, and kiss her very softly on the lips. "I'll see you in Atlantis," he said, and without looking back, stepped through the wormhole.

There was a cheer when he reached the other side, fingers curled into the palm of his free hand, as if trying to hold the warmth of Marie's flushed skin in his hand. Behind him, the event horizon dissolved.

Looking around, Rodney felt a sort of empty ache build in his chest.

Marie was gone.

She hadn't followed him through the wormhole. He shouldn't have been surprised.

"Hey, Sheppard!" he called into the openness of the Gate Room, hefting the cloth wrapped bundle in his arms. The technicians all perked up, and Sheppard leaned over the balcony between the dialing console and Elizabeth's office.

"What's that?" Sheppard asked.

Rodney forced a watery grin. "I brought you a present!" he called, bounding up the gateroom steps with more joviality than he actually felt.

**The End**


	11. Chapter 9 and a half BONUS

**Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude – 9.5  
**Bonus chapter by TVNerdGirl  
_  
This story is meant to take place mid Chapter 9 of Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude._

* * *

Marie stormed her way through the TARDIS, making as much noise as she cared to. Fury radiated in her every step as she went over the argument with Rodney in her mind. She wasn't sure who she was angrier at – Rodney for being so naive, so _human;_ or herself for allowing it to continue, letting him think it could be more than it was. She should have known better, should have seen it coming. All this time Slipping, all the others who had tried to convince her to stay...

Why had she thought Rodney would be any different? His intellect? Clearly being an unparalleled genius had no impact on rational thought where the Mary Sue was concerned.

_Damn him! _

She had no idea where she was going, nor did she have any clue where she was. The TARDIS, being what it was, seemed to go on forever. It almost reminded her of Jareth's labyrinth. There always seemed to be another corridor or hallway ahead of her. Despite her lack of an intended destination, it felt like the TARDIS was leading her somewhere, guiding her instincts, instructing her which way to turn, or when to head straight.

She found herself standing in front of an unmarked doorway and somehow she knew that it was the door to Jack Harkness' quarters.

Her mind flashed back once again to the argument they'd had, and she felt her face burn as she remembered telling Rodney about Trieze. She'd never wanted that wound exposed, never wanted Rodney to know how lonely or how fragile she could be.

She raised her fist to knock on the door, but it opened before she had the chance, revealing a very shirtless, slightly surprised Captain Jack Harkness.

"I was hoping it was you outside my door," he said with a smile. "Come in?"

"How did you know I was there?" she wondered, barely meeting his gaze as she entered.

"Are you kidding? They could hear you in the next galaxy! I thought vampires were supposed to be all quiet and stealthy."

"I'm supposed to be a lot of things," she said bitterly, thinking of the disappointment and fear on Rodney's face.

"Something tells me you're not having a good day," Jack said simply, sitting down on the bed. He made no move to put a shirt on, but the devilish gleam had left his eye. For some reason that made her angrier. She did not need someone like Jack bloody Harkness pitying her. That wasn't what she came for.

_What did you come for?_

But she already knew the answer to that. She knew enough of Jack's character from Rodney's description to know that he was a complete flirt. He could give her what she wanted with no strings attached. He had already made the suggestion to be her _pomme du sang _earlier and although she could probably go a little while longer without feeding, she wanted the oblivion that would come with it. She wanted to just lose herself in someone who wanted nothing more from her than a shag and the physical ecstasy that she could offer in return for a meal. She knew Jack could give her these things and wouldn't ask anything in return.

"My day's been fan-bloody-tastic," she retorted sharply. "Can we skip the preliminaries?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh come off it," she said with an exasperated sigh. "You're pretty, but you're not dumb. You know why I'm here. You made me an offer earlier. I've come to accept."

"An offer..." He looked at her thoughtfully. "You mean for me to be your..."

"_Pomme du sang_," she finished impatiently. "Am I really going to have to spell this out for you?"

"I think maybe this isn't the best time," Jack said gently. The look in his eyes should have been mischievous, maybe even lustful like it had been before. Instead it was...kind. Maybe even slightly worried. It only made her madder.

"Well you sure picked a hell of a time to start acting out of character," she muttered.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

"It means that if I were anyone other than a Mary Sue we'd be naked and sweaty by now. You'd be up for it in a heartbeat! Instead, you're going all Doctor Phil on me! I don't need therapy, or a friend, or compassion. What I need is a good shag, and your blood."

"Since you put it that way, how can I refuse?" The sarcasm wasn't lost on her, nor was the look in his eyes. There was more to this for once, than just her. It suddenly occurred to her that while as the Mary Sue most plots tended to revolve around her, there was always a subplot somewhere and that she might have just wandered into Jack's. She looked around at his quarters, noticing the lack of decoration or adornment.

She remembered Rodney telling her that Jack had only come aboard the TARDIS recently, and even she could see the tension that existed between him, the Doctor and Rose. For all his bluster and swagger, there was an insecurity to Jack Harkness that even he couldn't hide.

"You're afraid they're going to leave you, aren't you?"

The question had obviously come out of left field for Jack, as his head snapped up and his eyes narrowed.

"I don't know what you're--"

"You're afraid." She repeated. "It's why you flirt so much, why you don't have any personal belongings. You know that any day now they'll see just how empty you really are and leave you behind."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he said softly.

"I don't? How do you think I know, Captain Harkness?" She looked down at her hands, flexing them on her hips. "I'm having a hell of a time remembering that there's a person under this Mary Sue. Under the...whatever the hell it is I am. You think I don't see the same thing in you? Face it, you're just empty as I am. You just don't know it."

"You know nothing about me," Jack growled.

Marie's smile was darkly triumphant. She had hit a nerve. She could see it in his eyes, the way his stance had gone from open concern, to guarded, almost dangerous.

"I know that what I said just now bothers you," she replied calmly. The dark expression on his face should have warned her off. Instead she found it exhilarating and just a little bit sexy. She wanted his anger, his fury. She wanted to see that visceral reaction on his face. And, more than a little, she wanted _him. _Badly. "You're drawn to me, Captain, because you and I are the same."

"Did you just come here to pick a fight?" He stood up and strode past her towards the door. She stood firm, refusing to take the hint. Instead, she took the opportunity to stare at him, taking in his bare chest and the strength that he radiated.

"You know what I came here for," she countered. "Hell, it was your idea! C'mon, Jack, why don't you just shut up and do what you do best?"

"I think I've had enough of this," Jack said, turning towards the door. Crossing the room, she put her hand on his before he could open it. He looked at her in surprise, and then leaned in close. She could feel the warmth of his skin. "You sure you want to push me? You might be biting off more than you can chew."

She smiled, letting her teeth show.

"I'm counting on it," she replied as she shoved him against the wall and kissed him – hard.

He tensed at first and she wasn't sure if he would push her away or not. To her surprise, he deepened the kiss instead, pulling her against him and running his hands roughly through her hair.

She broke away with a gasp and stepped back.

"What's the matter?" Jack taunted. "This is what you wanted. Don't tell me you're having second thoughts just when things were getting interesting."

He was grinning now, an intensity in his eyes that, despite everything, made her bite her lip in anticipation. He just looked so..._tasty. _

"Getting interesting," she mused as she pressed herself against the warmth of his skin and ran her fingers lightly over the broad expanse of his bare chest. He shivered slightly, but otherwise showed no reaction. "Believe me I have no intention of backing off."

As she spoke he grabbed her waist forcefully, and dipped his mouth towards hers. This kiss was different than the last. It was soft, almost gentle, but with an undercarriage of desperation and force. It was a game of chicken and neither one of them was prepared to swerve.

"What about your boy?" Jack whispered in her ear. His voice was a silky purr and his breath against her ear caused her to clench her fists. He pressed his hips into hers, slowly, suggestively.

"He's not _my_ boy," she growled back, hands finding the belt buckle of his trousers and unbuttoning him.

She gasped as they fell to the floor and she took in the sight of him. Evidently Captain Jack Harkness did not wear underwear. She swallowed heavily, suddenly at a loss for words.

Jack took her momentary incoherence as his opportunity to run his hands down the side of her face, her neck, collarbone, and finally trailing down to the opening of her own trousers. He made no move to undress her, however.

She felt her own control slipping as she met his gaze. The anger still simmered behind his eyes, but a different kind of fire resided at the forefront. Sensation still lingered on her skin from where he had touched her.

"One of us is overdressed," Jack told her simply. If he had any modesty whatsoever, he wasn't showing it.

"Okay," she replied, her voice no longer as steady as it was. "So do something about it."

He needed very little encouragement. With renewed force, he discarded her clothing with practiced ease. Her mind suddenly strayed to thoughts of Rodney and the look on his face the first time they were together. It made her teeth clench with anger. Why couldn't he see their time together the way Jack did? Why did he have to make things so complicated?

"Damn it!" She said out loud as Jack guided her over to the bed and pulled her against him. His lips quickly found her neck and she was bombarded with sensation.

"Problem?" he murmured against her shoulder. Her body reacted, despite the distraction that thoughts of Rodney had caused. His fingers traced the curve of her hips so lightly she wasn't sure if the touch was real or imagined.

"Nothing," she lied. She turned to him, and kissed him deeply, trailing kisses all over his neck and down towards his chest. "I want to forget everything. Can you do that? Just make me forget?"

She looked up at him, challenge in her eyes as she ran her hands over him. Her touch lacked the finesse of his. She was driven by something beyond anger now, beyond bloodlust. Her entire body craved the emptiness she had fought so hard against only moments ago. Now, she just wanted to forget. She wanted to lose herself in the physical comfort Jack offered.

She could sense the blood pulsing beneath his skin. She wanted to taste him so badly. She wanted the warmth he offered – the nothingness.

"I can do that," he promised her. And before she knew it, he was inside her, filling her, and there was nothing but the two of them.

He didn't attempt to be gentle, and she was grateful for that. There was no passion in the encounter, no tenderness or grace. He moved against her with a clumsy desperation that echoed in her own movements. Each of them had something to escape, and something to forget.

She met his eyes, and saw the fear behind them – the same fear she could feel pressing against her own subconscious. Reaching up, she touched his face, gently this time. She wasn't sure why, but she wanted banish the haunted look from his eyes.

"Jack..."

"You're right, damn it," Jack whispered. He ran his hands over her shoulders and slowed his movements. He kissed her mouth. She was suddenly aware of just how intimate his touch was, and it frightened her. "I am scared. And it kills me that you know that I am."

"Right, and I'm not?" She meant to sound snarky and sarcastic. Instead her voice caught slightly and she just sounded scared and vulnerable. Could he sense that?

Gently, with real tenderness, Jack leaned down and kissed her lips.

"Guess you're right. We are the same."

She pushed up against him, heat surging through her, her body desperately wanting to take over and leave everything else behind.

"And doesn't that just suck like a corpse?"

He said nothing in response to that, but she saw the ghost of a smile pass his features. He took the hint she offered though and pulled her legs around his waist, taking her as deeply as he could. She gasped and gave herself over to the sensation.

She clung to him and dug her nails into his shoulder and with every passing second wanted nothing more than to sink her teeth into Jack Harkness and taste what he had to offer.

"What are you waiting for?" It was meant to sound like a demand or a challenge, but the tone of his voice made it sound more like a plea.

It was the only hint she needed. Taking control, she rolled him onto his back, straddled Jack's waist and raked her fingers down his chest towards his hips.

"Impressive." Jack looked slightly surprised, but didn't complain.

"That's not all I can do," she grinned.

"Let's see it then," he said, the cocky smile back on his face.

"Just remember," she retorted, "you wanted this."

"All talk and no action," he shot back. She smiled too, and bent down, allowing her lips to graze the skin of his neck. She felt him shiver in anticipation, but she wasn't going to taste him there. She had a better spot in mind. Ever since he had opened the door, half naked she had wanted to taste him.

He seemed to sense what she had in mind because he groaned the minute her tongue touched his chest.

"Do it," he whispered.

He didn't need to tell her twice.

The first wave hit her, and she moaned aloud. Jack clung to her, caught in the same flush of ecstasy. In that instant, everything was perfect. She forgot about Rodney, about her own emptiness and all the anger drained from her body, replaced by the warmth of Jack's blood, and the feel of his body beneath hers.

She concentrated in the moment and let the rest of the world fall away. All of the pain, the anger and self loathing vanished. She would deal with her own emptiness later. Right now, she was content to let Jack fill her, warm her.

Right now, he made her feel alive. And she'd cling to that feeling as long as she could.


End file.
